There's just some days . . .

I'd been getting ready to leave. Not permanently kind of leave. Just a few days off world to handle some very specific business that couldn't be handled remotely. Or, more accurately, a very specific person I would have to go to rather than bring to me. Two of them, really, since I planned to swing by Ariel on the way home to spend some time with 'Brina. I'd been feeling the distance more and more lately and work was becoming less of a distraction from that "alone" feeling.

We both had our ways of dealing with being apart. We both had local friends who could brighten our days. From what I was hearing, 'Brina was very popular with the other engineers in Uncle Elsoph's special projects group and with the platform's staff in general. Add to it a population at the orbital shipyard that was about triple what we had on all of Hale's Moon, and close proximity to other facilities and Ariel itself, and my wife wasn't lacking for distractions.

My situation on Hale's Moon was a little different. There was less to do. Less to keep my mind occupied away from work. Especially since the Alliance changed our government on us and pretty much put me out of my publicly acknowledged job. Though, to be fair, I was less of a social animal than my wife. Most of the time I was content to be alone in the Black. When I need to feel people around, I could fly down to the surface and spend an evening in Fook's or Firefly's. Plus I've had Haley to keep me company, snoring aside, and, more recently, Kari, Nack's sister, has spent some very pleasant social time with me. Unexpected, but welcome.

Who knew cats liked coffee?

Unfortunately, my departure plans were interrupted by a frantic call from the surface. It seems someone had stormed the CNS offices on Hale's Moon and taken Tillery hostage. Why? No clue. Probably either ransom or some kind of political statement. Either way, with no active Alliance patrol on the ground, it would be up to our locals to deal with the issue.

Fortunately for Tillery, no one did anything stupid. At least not very stupid. I had Genni assemble a Militia sniper team to deal with the keijijou holding Tillery on the roof of the CNS building. I resisted the urge to call in a team from the Sinkov, since the more it looked like we could handle things on our own the more likely it was Silvermane could push for us to get control of the colony back.

In the meantime, our locals handled things like they so often do. With a lot of random gunfire and a bit of high explosives. Not always very effective, but often spectacular.

The Infirmary had a few casualties to deal with in the aftermath, but at least Tillery wasn't hurt. Down side was the kidnappers got away, evacing on a stolen shuttle when our locals took to the air for better position themselves before Genni's snipers got into position. They left Tillery behind, shaken up but uninjured, and Cody, who'd somehow managed to get himself stared down at gunpoint.

Best we could do at that point was put out an alert with the stolen shuttle's ident and hope one of the Alliance patrols, or a friendly merchant in the region, caught site of them. With our navtrac being what it was, they'd have a hard time just transferring to another boat and slipping away, but they could probably get out of range before anyone caught up with them.

If I hadn't been on short time, I might have gone after them myself. Was unlikely a stolen shuttle would be able to elude Wave Equation's arrays. Wasn't in the cards though. Had places I needed to be, and with Tillery safe, I wasn't so concerned with the folk who'd tried to snatch him. Was something I could leave the the authorities.

Though, to be sure, it was something I'd be looking into when time allowed.