Contact

AuroraBlue is awake. But she is not "better." At least not fully. She's awake, responsive, but not speaking. Taking her back to Hale's she sat on my lap the whole way, not saying a word but at least relaxed. I'm so far out of my element here that I don't even know what to think. Is she withdrawn because of some trauma? Or is this something deeper? Or even something metaphysical completely outside my areas of expertise?

I just don't know. Even keeping her with me on the orbital for a couple days before letting her go back to Lily and Cody, she doesn't speak. She's not acting like a normal child, but that's no surprise as she's not a normal child. Even if she hadn't gone through rapid physical development, or been somehow pre-conditioned to develop intellectually, she wouldn't have been like the other children in the creche or the kids who're raised with their families.

I know, somehow, that she was created with a purpose. I just have no idea what that purpose is. Or, really, who even set it in motion. Was it Mindo? Or was he being manipulated himself? Blue, perhaps? The big AI has his own agenda, of which I know but a fraction. I consider him a friend, in a hard to define, "I don't pretend to understand this relationship," sort of way. Blue was integral to Mindo's plans with Lily and later Aura. But was it Mindo's plan, or Blue's? x0x0, maybe? She was more deeply involved in this than she let on. Blue was hers, after all. As Nora had been my project, Blue Man was her creation. If AuroraBlue was somehow the result of Blue's agenda, it followed that x0x0's influence was in there somewhere.

Sometimes I wondered if I was being played here. Maternal instincts I, admittedly, didn't know I'd had, being manipulated? Possible. When it came to my girls, all of them, 'Brina included, my judgement was biased. I could see the possibility of being manipulated, but tended to de-emphasize it in my situational analysis.

Bad habit. One I'd need to moderate.

Having Cody bound by law, on a warrant issued off-world, didn't help either. He'd left me a note, trying to explain, but I'd have to pull some strings behind the scenes to cut him loose. There wasn't a lot of risk in doing it. Far as I knew, the warrant was for shooting a deputy. Hadn't even killed him. Would probably generate a bit of mukappara on the part of the locals, but that's the price of doing business sometimes.

At least pulling strings behind the scenes was a world I knew. Not as comfortable as doing an extraction myself, but it was much more my forte than parenthood. I suppose that's one of the reasons so few spooks have families.

We're not very good at relationships.

Darkness

Leaving the the orbital, the signal of several Reaver boats inbound, I don't know if what I am going to attempt will work. It is, admittedly, a long shot. I can't logically or rationally explain why AuroraBlue is comatose. The station can take care of itself though, that I'm sure of. They're well armed and the Sinkov is already aware of the situation. The frigate will be there before the Reavers can do much damage. Even if they get aboard, the station personnel know what to do. I just won't be there to see them do it.

The Reaver boats won't see us on the way out. Their own drive flares are hot enough to overwhelm Wave Equation's signature, even if the hull hadn't been blacked out with the drives damped. She's an ELINT boat and I know the game better than they do. But right now, the Reavers are the last of my worries.

I can't use full burn because of the damping, so it takes a longer than I'd like to move my boat a couple light seconds from Hale's Moon into the greater Lagrange point trailing Penglai. Beetle's Baily is on the other side of the formation, ahead of Hale's in the large gravitationally stable region that makes up the L5 point. It's quiet here. As quiet as we're going to get without spending a week burning out the Deep Black. Out between the stars. Hopefully, it'll be quiet enough.

With the boat holding steady, roughly co-orbital with a hunk of rock half a kilometer wide 5 clicks off, we go silent. It's why we came out here. Wave Equation's hull can passively damp out all the RF and signal noise. But the distance serves another purpose. It isolates us from any people who might be loud enough to cause a problem.

I can't hear them, of course. I'm not a Reader. Whether I understand, or even really believe, doesn't matter. Lily's said the Cub needs quiet. Real quiet. And that is something I know how to give her.

With Wave Equation set to dead silence, I set up the program. Even Blue's not here with us now. He'd need my boat's small high-performance Frame to be with us, and the Frame is powered down. Everything is powered down except auxiliary life support running from emergency power and a couple of tiny E-Lights providing barely enough light for me to not trip over anything in the dark.

She'll need hot, then cold, and silence. It takes a bit of work to program aux life support to run the thermal control program I need, but it's the kind of challenge I'm well equipped for. With everything set, I make sure AuroraBlue is comfortably resting on the bed then settle in to meditate and wait.

It's the kind of deep meditation most people never achieve. It's hard for a person, even a trained and naturally calm one, to completely quiet their mind. But it's what I have to do. Absolutely blank my mind. Silence. Ignoring any sensation as the cabin first heats up to what would be considered "uncomfortably hot" then, after a time, cycles back through "almost painfully cold." I've set the temperature range carefully to be stressful, but not threatening for the duration we'll be exposed.

All the while my mind . . . blank.

For a moment, a fleeting moment, I know what it is to be the Buddha. My mind at peace. One with the 'Verse around me. Before I can fix it in my mind, it's gone. My awareness picks up movement in the cabin and my eyes open to see AuroraBlue stepping towards me in the darkness then settling to the deck in front of me. She doesn't speak or look to either side. She just stares ahead, wide eyed and frightened.

I don't know if she understands where we are or what we're doing, but she's awake and I take her gently into my arms to hold her close.

"Welcome back, Tiny Dragon. Mother is here for you."

Tiny Dragon, wakes.

Stares into silent darkness.

Finds mother's embrace.

Silence

I've said it before and I will, inevitably, say it again. No mother in history has gone through the trials I have gone through with my little girls. Humanity has had thousands of generations to get a good handle on what parenting should be like, but neither of my little girls are an accurate reflection of the rest of Humanity. They both just . . . are.

Things have been very unpredictable with them both recently. AuroraBlue, Anna, rather, has gone through another phase of rapid growth. I can't help but worry that that kind of strain, even on an engineered metabolism, can't be good for her long term survivability.

Of course, having her fall from a roof doesn't help that survivability factor much. Or get pushed, if that was the case. I don't really know. I just know they took her to the Infirmary and got her stabilized while I was stuck elsewhere. When I finally got there, Cody had been sitting vigil with her for some hours. I could see the effect it was having on him. Poor kid. I couldn't let him, or anyone else really, see the effect it was having on me. Seeing any youngun hurt like this pulled at your heartstrings. When it was your own kin?

I'm calm. Outwardly, I'm always calm.

From a purely medical position, we need to find a better place to treat her than the Infirmary here on Hale's Moon. We're very well equipped, at least for a small town frontier clinic, but Tiny Dragon's injuries are beyond what we can practically deal with here. She's stable, but she needs a real MedLab with doctors who can deal with the kind of traumatic injury she's suffered.

Our nearest option is the Sun Tzu. It would take calling in a favor and revealing cards I would rather keep hidden, but it's the fast option. Our best option, from a security for our injured standpoint, would be the medical center at the Family shipyard over Ariel. I trust my doctor. But it's a long flight even at full burn.

Then there are the other options.

Lily's behavior is as erratic as I've ever seen it. More so, really. At some moments she's acting like an Expert System that's not quite ready to take on a Turning test. Another moment, and she's a skittish not-cat. Give it a moment, she's an over-protective mother willing to kill to protect her cub. All within the span of a few moments. And poor Cody catching the brunt of her over-protective streak. Was all I could to to keep him from getting shot.

It almost seemed poetic that Blue would chose then to make an appearance. Or at least talk to us. He knows what is happening. He understands, either from analysis or from planning it from the start. But that doesn't make sense. No. Not planned from the start. But I suspect he identified the direction this whole saga was going and was able to predict the outcomes. At each critical point, there was a chance Chaos would interfere with his carefully predicted outcomes. But I was certain he'd calculated each break point. Every possible fork.

But the answers come in riddles. Silence. Heat. Cold. Somehow Anna needs environmental ques to come out of the coma she's in - as well as the basic medical treatment. There's an anechoic chamber in the Blue Sun lab here on Hale's Moon. x0x0 has taken herself off world and left Lily with the key. She knew I would need it. But that leads me to another form of "quiet." Metaphysics and parapsychological effects I'm not comfortable exploring.

There are at least two kinds of quiet in this context and I'm not sure x0x0's lab can provide what we need. I can recreate most of the anechoic chamber effects aboard Wave Equation using the dampers and some extra sound insulation. The other kind of quiet though is an entirely different animal. Without leaving her absolutely alone, it will take someone who can be silent. Someone who can silence their own inner turmoil. Their own thoughts as well as their body. It'll take a Ninja.

Or a Dragon.

I can't help but think I've missed some part of this riddle. Some key piece to the puzzle. But I know how to proceed at least. While Cody's coming to grips with letting be take Anna off the Orbital into the deep Black. I still don't know where the 'Hot and Cold' are physical conditions or emotional ones. Maybe the difference between the Machines she is so in tune with, and her Human family. I don't know. But I can give her the silence, both acoustic and empathic, I suspect she needs, and the thermal range. So that is what I prepare to do. To take my little girl away from the noise here, onto my boat deep in the black, running silent.

But not alone.

Tiny Dragon sleeps
Seeking a peaceful silence
Answer in riddles

Uninvited memories

Talking to Owl tends to bring back memories. Our relationship was . . . different. That's really the only way to describe it. The Government Spook and the Freelancer. Thrown together off and on by mission circumstances, over a very rough period in history. Sometimes working towards the same goals and sometimes working at cross purposes, but never directly opposed. Never the other's primary target. Fortunate, since one of us would have come out of it quite dead. As a Freelancer, Owl had more flexible and varied mission profiles than I had. But she'd also taken more risks. The Intel community was notorious for tossing Freelancers to the wolves when they needed a scapegoat, or just needed to eliminate an inconvenient knowledge base.

Most of our missions together had been over a brief span after the war, before I'd been re-designated "Special Asset: Technical" from "Special Asset: Tactical." When we'd seen each other in the field, it usually meant someone was going to die. I was a different person back then. Still cold. Still angry. A mask of zen calm concealing the turmoil within. It was no wonder her memories of that period were more pleasant than my own. Some of the memories were painful. Like the one our talk the other night brought back to the surface.

The war will be over soon, but none of us know it. Not yet. And even if I knew I wouldn't really care. We're on Ares, around Boros in the Georgia system. We've been inserted to deal with a specific target. Arion deSilva had a distinguished career with the Alliance, retiring a Colonel before the war. The Indies have made him a General. He is a master strategist, responsible for several Independent victories, and a thorn in High Command's side.

I am here to kill him.

General deSilva is visiting an Indie listening post in a remote area of Ares, sharing the love with his troops. We're a bit over two thousand meters from the well camouflaged command building, on a wooded shallow hillside, barely five hundred meters from their perimeter. Roughly fifty meters to the side, and a bit further up the hill, my spotter's waiting for him to make an appearance.

Her optics give a broader field of view than I have through the high power scope resting on the back of my Ritter&Lau 415 sniper rifle. We're both suited up in passive camouflage with infra-red damping, a phase change material absorbing heat to keep our signature close enough to the background that thermal imaging won't see us. A hair fine fiber optic strand runs between us, so our only RF radiation is a couple of pico-watts escaping from our gear. We're traveling light and we're both small, making us a hard target for seismic sensors as well.

This level of precaution would be overkill anywhere else and is probably overkill here too, but this is a listening post and if the Indies have any sophisticated sensors here is where they'll be deployed. Their patrols walk the perimeter at semi-random intervals but their closest approach is roughly four to six hundred meters from our position. The nearest actual installation, an 18mm auto-cannon emplacement about a thousand meters from us.

I've worked with my spotter before. Her name is Amanda. She's a year or so younger than I am, a little taller, not much heavier. She's blond, and pretty, but we aren't exactly friends. We're lovers, but not because I have any deep attachment to her. I sleep with her in a vain effort to chase the chill from my Ghost with the warmth of another human body.

It doesn't work.

Caitlin's loss is still too fresh in my mind. Too near. It will be years before I can let go but right now I'm concentrating on the mission. I don't hate the men and women in the listening post below, or the General who I have come to kill. Hating them will not bring Caitlin back. Will not warm the cold places in my chest.

We wait for hours, patiently, silently. Then I see the target acquired flag in the corner of my Head's Up. Amanda's spotted our target and fed me the position. Through the scope, I see the General standing close to the listening post's side entrance. His assistant, Lieutenant Colonel Li-Hue Sue, a couple meters from him, holding a mildly animated conversation. She's another former Academy graduate who left the Alliance military to join the Independents. A worthy target in her own right.

I don't need to ask Amanda to check for spotters. She already has. A few moments after giving me the target flag, she sends the 'Clear to Fire.'

I take a slow breath, hold it, consciously slowing my heart rate, relaxing into a surreal calm. Through the scope I can see both targets clearly. Everything in crystal clear focus. The scope's passive systems are already done computing the range and windage. I settle the reticle on target and ever so gently squeeze the rifle's trigger.

The 415 fires a 400 grain 10.54 millimeter round from a choked down 20 millimeter cartridge. With a muzzle velocity a bit over 12oo meters a second, it delivers an impact energy of almost 19000 joules. At those energies, a target's body armor doesn't matter.

Without a compensator, the massive recoil would break my shoulder. With it, the weapon barely moves. A heartbeat goes by. Another. I've shifted targets a hair's breadth and squeeze off another round between beats while the first is still in flight.

Through my scope, I watch a man die. I don't know him. I don't care. His aide barely has time to recognize the splatter of blood on her clothing before the second round finds its mark and her span ends as well.

A moment later and we are ready to bug out, our mission done, when the auto-cannon opens up. Their acoustic system can only give them a general direction based on the crack of a near hypersonic round, but it is enough for them to start spraying the hillside around us with fully automatic fire.

I'd ranged the auto-cannon hours ago, and reset the scope to its preset. At this range, the shot isn't a challenge. I fire three rounds in rapid succession, the first two taking out the cannon's gunner and loader, the third slamming into, and through, the weapon's breach. The cannon silenced, my magazine empty, I ask Amanda for a target update.

Silence.

I ask again, and again, nothing. It's possible that in the hail of auto-cannon fire, we've lost the fiber optic link. But no. I still have telemetry from her but it takes a moment for me to recognize what I'm seeing on the display.

Moving as quickly as I can through the trees and undergrowth without fully compromising my position, I slap in another magazine and work my way to Amanda's position. Sporadic gunfire from the post tries to find us, but they only have a general location. They're still too far away and too confused to see my well camouflaged form through the trees.

Thirty seconds later, I reach Amanda's position and confirm what I'd surmised from the telemetry. Our suits are light armor, at best. They could stop a handgun or slow down a carbine, but against a cannon, they might as well be cotton. Through random chance, an 18mm round has impacted and detonated against Amanda's collarbone. I can take some solace in knowing she didn't suffer.

In the distance two, possibly three, patrols are starting to work towards us. They're moving carefully, trying to stay to cover. They know there's a sniper. The sudden silence of the cannon giving them reason to be cautious.

I don't know Amanda's faith, so whisper a prayer asking for Buddha's wisdom to guide her Ghost on the next stage of her journey. It's all I can do. That, and offer an apology for what I must do next.

Knowing I may need it, I snag the heat sink canister from her suit and the spare from her pack. Along with with her macros. Her sighting optics give less magnification than my scope, but a wider field of view. In any case, I don't want them to fall into the hands of an Indie patrol. Finally I snag her side arm and the two spare mags, then rig a demo charge to deal with anyone who decides they want to touch her lifeless shell.

In the distance, I can hear a skiff lifting off. Even if they stay low, they'll be able to cover enough ground quickly enough to make my life miserable. Shifting back into cover a few meters away from Amanda's body, I sight in on the rapidly rising skiff.

It's a gunship. Weapons pods under stub wings and a small cargo bay for an infantry fire team, currently manned by a door gunner on each side. It's cockpit and engines are lightly armored. More than the rifle can punch through, but that doesn't stop me.

As they stabilize, trying to get their bearings, I sight the pilot through his armored canopy and start to fire rounds in rapid succession. The first one spalls the canopy in front of him, drawing his attention as the second and third rounds slam into the clear polymer armor almost on top of each other. The forth round breaks through, but deflects, ricocheting off his back seater's helmet. The pilot glances back at his gunner and I put my final round through the fist sized hole in the canopy in front of him.

I don't wait to see the skiff go down, taking its dead pilot, unconscious gunner, and helpless door gunners with it. I have to move. Now. Inside a hundred meters I've stripped the scope and compensator from the Ritter&Lau and fired off a small demo charge in the weapon's firing mechanism. It had served me well, but with no ammunition and active pursuit, it will only slow me down.

Ares is not friendly to the Alliance, so I can expect no help from the locals, and over the next three days I play cat and mouse with the Independents. Eventually, tired, dirty, low on ammunition, they manage to extract me. I've covered nearly a eighty kilometers across Ares' rolling forested hills and, when they get me back to base, they treat me like a Gorram hero.

I'm not a hero.

I'm a soldier.

I've lost my spotter, and left eleven men dead. They pin a medal on my chest and say I've done a great service to the Alliance. But all I can think of are the faces I saw in my scope. They've given Amanda a medal, posthumously, as well. I ask for, and receive, permission to deliver it to her parents on Albion in person.

I do it for her memory. But this kindness does nothing to warm my Ghost. I am still cold and empty.

I am still the Ice Queen.

Explain to me again why I took this job?

There are times when "it's been quiet" is the last thing I want to be in a position to say. My role in Intel comes in bursts, which is probably for the best given my personal feelings about asset management and playing political games up the food chain. Both roles I'm good at, but don't especially enjoy. I'm much happier as a tactical lead or, better, a tactical asset. I would much rather Do than order others to do for me.

It's probably a kindness that I'm positioned where I am, out in the boondocks of the Kalidasa system. Much of the Intel comes in through more or less regular channels. Mission reports from the normal Alliance Military units. Local feeds from the colonies. A few active organic assets doing what they do. All of it very interesting to someone, somewhere, who can glean useful intelligence from the minutia of day to day operations.

My specialty was always covert, clandestine, operations, usually involving Hard-Site penetration. Get in, deal with the target however required, get out. Either gathering information or removing a threat, I was a Sneak specialist. I still am a Sneak specialist. It's just that now I'm doing more managing than sneaking, and don't especially enjoy it.

With the colony still under Martial Law and Alliance control, there was very little Mayoring to do either. The town Elders were still serving as 'advisers' to the Alliance security/occupation/peacekeeping operation. Which meant someone, sometimes, sent me a wave asking my opinion as to whether we should extend or restrict the curfew by half an hour, or whether we should bother since no one seemed to be paying much attention to it, or something else of equally world shattering proportions. I'd been rendered more or less superfluous to the colony.

The folks over in the Destiny compound were still keeping on their "We're independent!" face, for what it was worth. They were independent because their presence didn't disturb the situation too much, even if some of their business was affecting the colony's coin. The deals that kept the colony fed and in medicine were still in place, and the mines were doing OK, so the loss of a bit of coin didn't hurt all that much.

I suppose I could spend more time on the surface. I'd been spending more time on the Orbital even before the Alliance made their presence felt. Since Martial Law, I've barely been to the surface except to talk to some of the Elders and assure them I haven't abandoned them.

I wouldn't, of course. Appearances aside, I was still keeping my hand in. It was just that so few people out here on the Rim actually knew what it was I did. Another kindness. Given the sentiment most folk had out here about the Alliance, it was probably for the best that they didn't know what I'd actually done during my time in service.

With luck, none of them ever would. I'd built a reputation out here on the Rim. Earned the trust and respect of the other folk that called Hale's Moon home. Who I'd been before didn't matter now so much, and I think most of the folk I knew would agree.