Outbound leg

Every time I leave Hale's Moon, I wonder what'll change in my absence. Reaver attack? Alliance install a new government? Another rock drop out of orbit and leave a smoking hole somewhere on the surface? Was always something different. Not always so major, but always something to leave me saying "Mmmm, maybe I should have stayed around."

Some unknown miscreants trying to kidnap Tillery one day, and a bounty hunter bagging Cody a couple days later made my departure a little awkward. But I'd already delayed my trip longer than I should have. Rescheduling with Sabrina was easy. Uncle Elsoph would kick her out of the lab before I docked, no matter when I docked. But meeting the Professor was a different story.

The 'missing Cody' issue I would have to leave to others. The pilot of the boat that took him killed his pulse beacon while the IAV Abraham Sinkov was vectoring in. Made it easier for them to drop off the grid, seeing how the Sinkov's array's were typical Alliance and essentially kainashi. That didn't mean our system couldn't track them for a good deal farther. Still, there were a lot of worlds to alert down that vector, even with a solid ident and profile for the boat.

Have to hope someone, on a console somewhere, made the connection when the boat set down and sent word back our way. Doubted I'd be around to deal with it, but Gallagher or someone else in the Sheriff's office could follow up the lead.

AuroraBlue showing up while I was at Firefly's before departure put another spanner in the gears. She still wasn't talking to anyone, me included, but it seemed she didn't need to talk. She was able to make herself understood whether she spoke or not. The details were still fuzzy, but it had something to do with x0x0, her horse, and a lot of altitude. The problem was, there were too many vectors for me to chase down. I couldn't pursue Cody, x0x0, Tillery's kidnappers, and the work I was rapidly running out of time to do all at the same time.

If AuroraBlue snuck aboard, I wouldn't complain. I'd offered to take her with me but I'd have to leave the ultimate decision up to her. I wasn't going to force the issue. Assuming I could force the issue. Which, itself, was in doubt. Tiny Dragon faced the world on her own terms. She might listen to a suggestion, or choose to accept a command based on respect, but she wasn't going to be intimidated into cooperation or just do something "because I said so." She was a lot like her mother in that respect.

I'd get contacts, official and otherwise, to look into the current issues. I wasn't going to bring all of my Intel Section resources to bear, but it was easy enough to set the flags and let the big, unwieldy, oft uncoordinated, intel machine do its thing. Where x0x0 and Cody were involved, I could use official channels to discretely query the Special Investigations Group where Major Siamendes had still been showing some passing interest in my residents. Not that the normal flags wouldn't catch it.

For now, it was time to get a move on. Say good night to friends at Firefly's. File a pre-flight that was almost, but not quite, accurate, and get Wave Equation into the black. I had a lot of space to cover, and not a lot of time to do it.

Just hoped the trip went as intended.