Altered structures

Colonel Corriene Silvermane had been the commanding officer of the 1st Marine Raider's for several years, with a brief gap while she recovered from an assassination attempt while on Hale's Moon.  The Loyalist faction wasn't especially fond of an Officer that was not only good at her job, but generally opposed to abusing the colonies her unit was responsible for.  She'd done a lot to normalize relationships between Hale's Moon and the Alliance forces in the region.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, I guess, depending on your perspective, Officers get moved around.  No matter how good you are at what you do, or maybe because of it, you'll get moved to another position.  It was only a matter of time then before they reassigned Silvermane to another unit.  

I was actually happy for her, and for the professional relationship we'd developed.   They'd promoted her to Brigadier General a couple months back and, now, reassigned her to a Divisional position as the Assistant Divisional Commander for the Marine's 4th Frontier Division, which the 1st Marine Raiders was part of.  For her it was a full step up the food chain and, for me, I wasn't actually losing a resource.  It was just maneuvering into another position.

The disadvantage for me, and us as a colony, was we didn't know yet how the new CO would treat the colonies in their patrol area.  Silvermane would still have her influence from above, but she'd have her hands full and now had several other Brigade sized units to deal with in the Division.  If the new CO turned out to be an mudak they could do a lot of harm before word came down from above to back off.

While I had their resume on my desk, along with their background, it was no substitute for actually meeting them.  But when would that happen?  Would that even happen?  While I had official channels to work back up through, I wasn't going to reveal my Intel position to the new CO until I was sure it wouldn't compromise my own plans.  The liaison, Lionheart, could recommend they speak to me as a representative of the colony, but that wasn't an official position.  We had some makeshift law enforcement, but we had no established government.  Yet.

That was something else I'd have to keep my eyes on.  I knew folks feelings on my leadership were mixed.  The folks who'd liked anarchy and the presence of pirates and smugglers weren't so happy with me.  The folks who liked a modicum of safety and stability did.  The inevitable trade off between competing factions.  Thing was, I'd done what I thought was best for the colony then and I'd do the same now.  Should it come to that.  I'd make some noise about what I thought was best, but I wasn't the leader here.  Just a colonist with a vested interest in keeping things stable.  Seing how most folk here still gave the farmhouse a wide berth it wasn't much of an issue.  Bram, and his lackey, I mean "Deputy," weren't giving me any issues either so, for now, it was business as usual.

But for how long?

Home for the holidays: Or not.

I'm not fond of this time of year.  Not the weather, because that's easy enough to change with a short shuttle flight.  No, it's the social aspects of this period on the Old Calendar.  When it was just Earth that Was, the calendar made sense.  So did the holiday periods.  The seasonal cycles were predictable and fixed.  Since the dominant cultures for the last couple thousand years before the Exodus were in the Northern hemisphere, the "holidays" were winter holidays.  A hodge podge of various cultures, all mixing together and distilling down to a set of social traditions that usually involved family and giving presents and stimulating the local economy by the purchase of same.

The holidays are depressing.

Winter is depressing.

I've been out on the Rim now for the holidays for the last seven years.  Even before I went to Hale's Moon, and now on Dragon's Egg, I'd been out here.  I was alone for most of those years, but 'Brina changed that for me. Unfortunately, this year wasn't one we'd get to spend together.  Some sort of technical emergency on the platform, which I actually understand.  She's the best they have and she came back out here to help run the place.  This time of the year is only significant to us because we got together at Firefly's, back on Blackburne, this time of the year.

The girls were off-world, again.  Somewhere.  Actually, I knew where all three of them were.  Keeping track was an ongoing test of my growing network.  But I missed them.  Not that we were a normal family.  Or ever would be a normal family.  Or even could be a normal family.  It was what it was.  Lonesome though it was.

Even Simon was off world for the holidays.

But at least Haley's around.  If you'd asked me, well, ever, whether I thought a Beagle would be the most stable companion in my life, I'd have called you Baka.  But here she was.  Snoring blissfully away in her bed.  Rescued from Reavers, in order to be a stable influence in a lonely Spook's tumultuous life.

Deep Black

The situation on Dragon's Egg is becoming too unstable to continue with my plans. While I've still got a secure link to Saule Silencieuse, and my own Wave Equation on tap, the influx of PMC's and other unsavory types to Dragon's Egg isn't helping my situation. It helps that I've had the entire communications network jacked almost since I arrived, but it'll only be a matter of time before the Alliance takes notice of what's happening and increases their presence even more.

The farmhouse was an unlikely base of operations for me, to be sure, but it was what I had after the decision to move the platform. Though, in truth, Simon had built the place with me and my needs in mind. There was a layer of hull metal between the outer brick layers and the inner wood paneling. The windows were made from the same material they made spaceship viewports from, and there as a concealed fire suppression system built into the ceiling. Add to that a generator that had come out of an Alliance landing craft and more than adequate computing and communication stacks, and I was set. At least I had been set.

There were some things to be said for mild anarchy, of course. For one thing, it was much easier to hide an Intel operation when no one was sure what was going on outside the limited scope of what they could see. But anarchy was, by definition, unstable. And unstable wasn't what I needed for the kind of work I needed to do. So far, it hadn't been an issue. Maybe it was my reputation that was keeping people at bay, but even the Reavers were giving the farmhouse a wide margin. But how long would that last?

It appeared I would need to find a new base of operations.

But where?

Assuming I couldn't secure the situation on Dragon's Egg, of course.  But what would that entail?  There was a subtle push from several directions to establish some form of local government on the colony.  That would actually suit my needs, provided it wasn't too intrusive.  A few of the old Hale's Moon residents had approached me about reclaiming my spot as Mayor but, to be honest, I wasn't sure I wanted it.  The social makeup of the colony had changed.  The feel was different and I knew there were some people who'd actively oppose my leadership.
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That being what it was, I'd be willing to go with more or less any government the colonists decided to implement.  If it became intrusive, I'd leave.  Or, at the very least, move far enough from the settlement to declare independence from their government.  So far, the nearest thing to a government was our self declared Sheriff, Bram, who'd been in the role on Hale's before we had to abandon rock.  His authority was marginal without even a council, though if the Alliance made him a Deputy Marshall he'd actually be the local law.  Though his deputizing Nick was probably a mistake.  We'd have to see how that turned out.

Logistically, Surfer's New Paradise was potentially a good option.  The local government was one of the most laid back in the entire 34 Tauri system and I was well familiar with the colony and its customs.  It was also closer to the Core and better positioned than Dragon's Egg for my needs, also, the locals wouldn't give my girls any hassle when they came to visit.  Honestly, it was a strong contender, but I was a little reluctant to place any kind of burden on my kinfolk.  Even if Uncle Sobi wasn't biologically my kin.

The other option was, of course, to settle onto the IAV Saule Silencieuse.  I already had an office there, the crew was pleasant, if a little odd.  Though who in Signals Intelligence wasn't?  I was comfortable in the Deep Black.  I'd spent a lot of time there, alone, when I went into semi-retirement the first time.  But a Kamkamoss class Corvette wasn't exactly the best place to receive casual visitors.  Her mission required a good deal of obscurity and having people flying out in unmasked civilian boats wouldn't make things any easier.

I could always move back to the platform.  But there was still the matter of traffic and having less control over what was coming and going at the new location.  No.  That wasn't really an option, at least as currently deployed.

For better or worse.  I was staying where I was.

Home is where your dog is.

A new location
A place to do my calling
Home's where your dog is

So then these Reavers show up . . .

Aren't these guys dead yet?

Seriously. How long can they maintain enough of a population to remain a coherent group, let alone a measurable threat?

There were never more than about thirty thousand Reavers to begin with. While there weren't extensive surveys done, it was estimated that one tenth of one percent of those exposed to the Paxilon Hydrachlorate expressed the Aggressor response. With Miranda's population of around thirty million, there would have been about thirty thousand Reavers. That's it. Even if we double, or trebble the count, we're talking well under a hundred thousand of them.

To put it in perspective, that's between one and three Corps worth of Alliance military forces.

Sounds like a lot, until you realize the Army Group deployed in the Kalidaza system alone has more support personnel then there were Reavers in total. And that was roughly twenty years ago now. The days of Reavers raiding and pillaging have been on the wane for a long time.

Attrition's a bitch.

It doesn't help them that, contrary to some of the more insidious conspiracies, there is no evidence, at all, that the Reavers were an intentional result of the Pax. Everything anyone can find on the Pax indicates that the coverup of the incident was quite real, but the actuality of the aggressor reaction was an unexpected and tragic accident. In clinical trials, Paxilon Hydrochlorate was a mood stabilizer and mild sedative. What led Prescott Pharmaceuticals to suggest a massive scale airborne deployment on Miranda is still buried deeper than I've looked, but it wasn't an intention to create a small army of Berserkers to terrorize the Rim.

Even with the occasional "convert" and Mindo's crazy experiments, their numbers have fallen. They've had to. They die in combat. They fly ships that have marginal containment, which leads to more of them dieing. They don't breed. At least not that anyone's ever been able to document. The only children of Reaver rape-survivors I can find reference to were born normal. They didn't inherit the Reaver madness. It's Entropy at its finest.

The Reavers are dieing out, and have been since their were spawned.

So where the Gorram hell do they keep coming from?

With the recent attacks on Dragon's Egg, we can only assume their is either a Nest nearby or a mothership somewhere. Unfortunately, with the KHI Orbital redeployed elsewhere, we don't have anywhere near the array capability we once did. We'll find it, of course, eventually. But in the meantime, I've got to hope the colony can deal with the threat.

Dragon's Egg isn't Hale's Moon. We've got some skilled soldiers, but we don't have the well drilled militia we had on Hale's. Though, fortunately, the scale of the attacks seem to be smaller. Also, they seem to be steering clear of the Farmhouse. Maybe it's a few well placed shots from my long gun, or maybe they identify the place as mine and give it a wide margin. Either way, I haven't had to deal with them directly.

Though that may change.

Lily'd taken K2 with her days ago, but he was with her here on Dragon's Egg when the Reavers attacked. And, now, he's missing. Whether they have him or not, we don't know. Acting on their own, they'd have eaten him already. Acting on AuroraBlue's order? Different story. Does this tribe treat her as their Queen? If so, would she really send them here to get him?

Not sure I want to know.

But I will.

It's what I do now.

Little child of sand

Have the Reavers come for you?

Or unrelated?

Cubs

I don't pretend to understand Lily, or Blue, or AuroraBlue, for that matter. It's not just that they are each, in their way, a construct. Unlike everyone else I know, they developed without the normal psychological development the rest of us share. They lack the long term learning and perspective that we learn through trial and error from childhood.

None of them were ever really children.

They are each, in their way, a sociopath.

Not that that is really a surprise. I'm a sociopath on some levels myself. It's why I'm so effective at what I do. But it does make things difficult. I've often said I've faced trials no other mother in history has ever faced. How could they? My adopted daughter is a synthetic life form. Not even really organic, though fully sentient. Her daughter is purely organic, but she's been through physiological changes that she probably shouldn't have survived and her mind is that of a Mentat: a Human mind that can think like a computer.

The new cub though? What do I make of him? Lily described him as being made from Sand and Electricity, and visually I wouldn't doubt he's a Synthetic. How? No idea. Given the developments in nano-fabrication and the influence of Blue, it's possible K2, as she calls him, really is made of Sand. Sort of. From sand would be more appropriate. A good high grade multi-mineral base with all the appropriate metallic elements available, and it might be possible. Might. As in, I can't entirely rule it out, but I haven't seen anything to say it's so either.

Synthetic or not, he was well behaved when Lily left him with me to tend. Spent almost the entire time curled up more or less asleep on the small bed with Haley, where Lily put him. Which, all things considered, wasn't such a bad idea. Haley's always been good around children. Pretty much from the day we rescued her from the Reavers, she's shown an even greater than average, for a dog, affinity for Younguns.

Part of me wants to know more about him, and another part doesn't want to think too hard about it. Mechanoids, like the infamous KM series, all require serious infrastructure investment to manufacture. There's a reason menial labor is still performed by indentured servants and the poor, rather than by industrial mechanoids. Autonomous mechanicals are expensive and complex to make, require skilled maintenance to keep in operation, and still generate a fair amount of fear within the general population. In most circumstances, they're just not economical. Not when you compare them to cheap human labor.

A synthetic like my dear Mei Mei is, functionally, a curiosity. Created in a lab by a brilliant, if insane, inventor, for a specific purpose. She is unique. Unlike the KM series or any of the other mechanoid models, there will not be hundreds or thousands of her coming off an assembly line. She is the only one of her kind and may forever be the only one of her kind.

Using nanotech under AI control to manufacture synthetics is a game changer. Potentially a terrifying one. But I'm not going to judge. I don't know enough about him. I will. In time. But for now, I don't. And I won't judge.

The question though, is whether I'll need to protect him from AuroraBlue. Lily's convinced my little girl is going to end her, and K2. Why? She can't say. Or maybe won't say. While I have my suspicions, I don't know for sure. There was a time when I thought I understood where it was all leading, but now I'm not so sure. Too many variables. Too many unknowns.

And my own emotions coloring the picture.

Energy and Sand

Machines as small as microbes

What now have you wrought?

And then someone blew up x0x0...

There are dangers inherent in being highly placed in a large corporation. It goes with the territory. No mater how well liked a corporation is, someone out there will want to put some hurt on the top executives. Either for some imagined slight, or for kidnapping and ransom, or for political reasons, someone will want to do them harm. That's why most corporate executives have some sort of security force around them at all times. They need it. Even Grandfather has a couple of bodyguards.

When half the known 'Verse has a love/hate relationship with the company, like, say, Blue Sun, the problem is magnified. While x0x0's position in the company isn't as widely known as some, she is still functionally, vary, very, powerful. If they were a privately held concern, like KHI, with no shareholders to appease, her power would be unsurpassed. But x0x0's always been independent and, honestly, a badass in her own right. She's always taken a rather, mukanshin'na . . . unconcerned, view of her personal security. I've kept an eye on her, as I have on Lily and AuroraBlue. Unfortunately, I have been much less successful at protecting my girls than I'd like.

That being the case, it was really no surprise that someone would put some effort into hurting x0x0. While a package bomb seems like a crude, and, honestly, unsophisticated, way to attack, it can be effective. In this case, it was quite effective. The device made it through x0x0's usual checks on such things and the blast damn near killed her.

I wasn't in position to do anything about it at the time, but I've been following her situation ever since. Not entire sure I like the space she's in now, truth be known. But, for now, I will just watch. If someone tries to finish what they started, I'll hopefully be a step ahead of them. If someone tries to take advantage of x0x0's compromised situation, I'll have her moved beyond their reach. I've got substantial discretionary power in my Intel position. And, failing that, I'm still quite adept at performing extractions.

In the meantime though, I need to sift the data and find out who tried to hurt her.

It's there.

I know it is.

I just need to find it.

Bombs so very crude.

An amateur assassin.

Perhaps something more?

Web

There are points in a persons life when everything suddenly comes into focus. Places and times where they realize what road they are on. It doesn't matter what road they might think they are on, or which they were on. They see the road they are on. It is in those moments they can embrace the path as it lies, or make a conscious effort to alter course. For better or worse, the choice becomes obvious.

Unfortunately, it's oft impossible to tell whether the choice, any choice, is for better or worse. Even when the choice has been made, it may be hard to tell for a while whether the choice made was the right one.

I've recognized most of those moments in my life.

But this one crept up on me.

Pouring over Intel analysis as I have done so often for the last couple years I suddenly realized how large a web I'd spun - to borrow a euphemism. Dragon's don't spin webs. But still. I'd positioned myself at the focus of a vast web of information. Originally as a way to protect my girls from being exploited, then simply continued because of inertia.

As a district officer I'd been given a great deal of freedom over what to do with the intelligence I collected. Much of it was simply passed on for later analysis. Some I acted upon myself, using the resources at my disposal or, rarely, taking a direct hand myself. Some I squirreled away because passing it up the chain would have consequences best avoided.

And therein lay the realization. Information was power. Even more than wealth, of which I had a passable supply, Information - raw knowledge - was power. Whether it was used for good or ill, or simply was, was separate from the information itself.

That, in itself, was no real revelation. It was more of a truism. What was a realization was that I'd been consciously making judgments about what information should get passed on or not, and why I was making those judgments. And the realization of the direct effects some of the passed information had had, and what the omissions had meant.

I'd been using information to subtly manipulate the Intel community, knowing, as I had pretty much since I joined the Intel community, that the community had subtly been manipulating me. Manipulating everyone. And now, the conscious realization that I could use that manipulation to advantage. Not for personal gain, though that was an obvious avenue, but to subtly guide events towards the brighter future I'd always imagined.

It was a frightening realization.

But it illuminated my course.

I had information. Vast quantities of it. And, by skillfully disseminating that information, by trading it, guiding it into the proper hands, or away from other hands, I could do far more good in the 'Verse than I ever could behind a command desk or from a high floor in a corporate tower.

Most of the contacts were already in place. It was a matter of expanding the network, casting a wider net, and, above all, being very, very, careful with how I used the power at my disposal.

It would have to happen slowly. Carefully. But it would happen.

It was already happening.

Only now, it was time to consciously move on what I knew.

Buddha help us all.

Knowledge is power

Vast web of information

Who am I to judge?

Surface

I'd never planned to spend a lot of time on the surface of Dragon's Egg. I certainly hadn't planned to live on the surface. But that's where I am now. Not my original plan, but what kept me on Hale's Moon is what keeps me on Dragon's Egg. My girls are here, so I am here. Only now, I'm on the ground, rather than enjoying the view from three hundred kilometers up.

Contrary to what seemed to be popular belief, I didn't actually own the platform. Never mind it had the Kawanishi name on it. Never mind I was part of the Kawanishi clan. Never mind it was deployed to Hale's Moon at my request. The platform had been owned by Kawanishi Heavy Industries Limited of Ariel, with very favorable terms for the Hale's Moon colony it orbited. Unfortunately, with Hale's gone, the agreement went with it. We redeployed it to Dragon's Egg at my request, but, sadly, I couldn't make a good business case for keeping it there. There just wasn't enough traffic to justify keeping the modular platform in place. Not with a copious lack of trans-shipment opportunities and with the Blue Sun owned Dragon's Egg Station there.

The "request" from Ariel wasn't so much a request as a declaration that KHI "was going to move the platform to a more accessible and lucrative position in the Kalidasa system, and, if I didn't intend to relocate with it, would I be so kind as to remove my personal effects from the station so they could disengage the modules and move it on out." So that, in effect, was that. The orbital platform that had housed my base of operations was being moved.

Functionally, it was an inconvenience but not a major problem. I still had IAV Saule Silencieuse at my disposal. While the ELINT Corvette wasn't my ideal home base, it was both mobile and very, very, well equipped for its job. I could establish a secure uplink to the ship and have access to all the capabilities I'd need, and could operate from my office there when needed. Though that left surface accommodations.

Taking Simon up on his offer of a room at his farm solved that issue, at the cost of raising multiple eyebrows. With 'Brina gone as long as she was, and even after coming back remaining largely out of sight with work, people weren't completely surprised that I appeared to be spending time with other people. I'd had slept alone every night after all, but some companionship in bed didn't mean I loved my wife any less. Or missed her any less. The bigger surprise was that Simon was male.

Thing was, there wasn't actually anything between us. Simon's admonishment that I was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen aside, my decision to take the upstairs room in his farmhouse was purely practical. The structure was sound, and easily reinforced behind the bricks. And there was ample room outside to park Wave Equation. Also, Simon's background as an Alliace officer was appropriate. And, not surprisingly, deeper than it seemed on paper.

So let the eyebrows raise. That I loved my wife wasn't in doubt with the one person who actually mattered in the equation. Our work schedules were still a point of stress, but we'd made it this far. She would understand my ulterior motives for settling on the surface.

Just so long as I understood them.

Rope

AuroraBlue is alive, but not home.

Lily is awake and active and scampering over her new home on Dragon's Egg, whilst still somehow remaining more or less out of sight.

Uncle Sobi has graced Dragon's Egg Station with his bartending prowess, though I think the real reason he's here is to avoid watching his Clanmates use a re-purposed, but fully armed, Mech as a construction"tractor." That and Lady Jade wanted to visit some friends on the Rim.

For me, life is what it is. My girls are ok. Sabrina is back, though we still don't see much of each other and Simon is . . .Simon. I've learned more about him. Possibly more than I wanted to, though not more than I needed to. It has been a long time since a man has shown any interest in me, partially because, at least I'm told, I intimidate the hell out of people, but more recently because I'm married to another woman.

He is certainly persistent, though I don't think I could ever imagine myself living as a frontier colonist. That was, of course, assuming I wasn't already quite happily living my life. Well. Ok. Not always happy. There've been some lonesome spells in there, when 'Brina and I hadn't seen each other in months, 'cept over the cortex. And the frustration of dealing with the job folk knew about, and the job folk didn't know about. And being a mother. Kind of.

And then there's the amateur who thinks he's a professional: Nick. The only person in a decade I've actually seen annoy Sobi. If he were a tenth as good as he thinks he is, the Alliance wouldn't stand a chance. Which means, ultimately, he'll either come to grips with his own limitations or someone with a more violent temper than Old Guy will take offence and end his span. Given his abject disrespect? I may be me that does it. Though more than one person's told me to just let him take all the rope he wants.

I suppose I'll just have to see how things develop in the near future. I have things in place where they, mostly, need to be. The girls are ok. Rope is being payed out.

All is as it should be.

Not quite what I had in mind

I am home.

AuroraBlue is not.

I can't say this all went according to plan, or the outcome was what I desired. But it is what it is and, ultimately, I determined the one thing I needed to determine: my little girl is safe. At least where "safe" is defined as not in imminent danger of being attacked my Reavers, captured by an Alliance biomedical research team, or dieing from exposure to hard vacuum.

I'd managed to track her to one of those fortress-like households the locals liked to build out in the desert, where Cody was already discussing something with the locals. It sort of figures that he'd have found her himself then not bothered to send me a wave to say she was all right. Though after his absconding with a sleeping Lily, I'm not surprised. Just another broken link in the chain of trust at this point. I've kind of gotten used to it. The number of people I trusted was dwindling back towards the point it was at when I first left active duty.

Lovely.

The locals were. . . a product of their culture. I'd read a bit of the colonial culture on Al Raquis, but dealing with it face to face was a different matter. It was plain that somehow Tiny Dragon fit into their local mysticism. It was also plain that they really had no idea what was living in their midst. While, under other circumstances, it would have been interesting to explore the depths of their local mysticism, at the time I was in no mood to have someone try and out-Zen me.

I was probably a bad person for them to be talking about "personhood" to. They had no idea that AuroraBlue and Lily had legal status as people because of the work I'd done. They didn't realize it was an insult, which was why I didn't take it as one. Though, ultimately, they were right about one thing. I wasn't going to force AuroraBlue to do anything.

I'd come to bring her home, but only if she was willing. Finding out that she was OK was more important to me. If she chose to stay, for her own reasons, I would accept that. Dragons do as they do. It is our way. Or something like that. Something had drawn her here after leaving the destroyed mother bot in the wreckage of Hale's Moon. Something about singing sand and the Ardra AI that Lily had been obsessed with. It was all tied together somehow, but I didn't have enough of the pieces to wrap my brain completely around it.

The trip wasn't a total disappointment though, for when I left the keep to call Wave Equation down to take me back off-world, AuroraBlue came down off the roof and bade me follow her into the desert. Eventually, leading the way to a small encampment sheltered against a ridge not unreasonably far from the manor house itself.

What she told me, relayed, really, since she still wasn't really talking, was something else I'd have to wrap my head around. A piece of a bigger puzzle. A piece of a puzzle I'd been putting together since I first met Lily and came to accept artificial life as every bit as "real" as the naturally organic variety. But it wasn't something I would dwell on until later. Until after I returned to Dragon's Egg.

After spending one night watching over my sleeping little girl.

Tiny dragon mine

The keys to great mystery

Held in your small hand

Understanding waits

For now I must let you sleep

Time remains to dream

The one wherein I cart around an extra couple kilos of sand in my boots

I'd like to be able to say that within hours of setting boots on the ground on Al Raquis, I'd found AuroraBlue and safely spirited her away from that unending desert. I'd also like to say I'd brought peace to the warring factions on Devenporte and found a generic cure for both cancer and the common cold. Unfortunately, I couldn't say any of those things. All I could say, safely, was that the world had a certain arid beauty to it and that if I never saw another sand dune, sans beach, it would be too soon.

This sort of work wasn't my specialty. While I had all the required skills, I typically didn't string them together in a search and recovery Op like this. Normally, I at least knew where to find my target so the Op was more a matter of figuring out how to approach than the actual mechanics of finding them in the first place.

For the moment, I was avoiding pulling any of my 'official' resources into this. While Alliance Intel had resources on world, drawing on them would raise questions I didn't feel like answering. Fortunately, I had other resources I could tap here. While part of me actually felt a little bad asking Jai and her Zenobian friends for help, it wasn't really much of a stretch. Jai knew Lily and AuroraBlue and me. She knew it was personal, not professional. It was a favor from a friend and one I would repay when I was able.

Still, before I could make contact with them I would do some ground work on my own: checking out some of the local facilities and settlements to get a feel for the place and any hints I might find before setting off into the pervasive desert to try and find up close what I hadn't been able to find with Wave Equation's sensor array.

Unfortunately, it looked like the only thing I was turning up so far was a whole lot of sand.

Sand

In spite of living on Hale's Moon, one of the driest inhabited worlds in the 34 Tauri system, I don't really like deserts. Though, technically, Al Raquis is a different sort of Desert than Hale's. Correction. Than Hale's was. Where Hale's Moon was essentially a compressed hunk of gravel and rock, Al Raquis had the characteristics of a terrestrial desert. Dry, arid, and sand. Lots, and lots, of sand.

The world's local government was somewhat fragmented, with various families, guilds, clans, or whatever, vieing for control and claiming sovereignty over different parts of the colony. Like a lot of other member worlds, the Alliance influence was more in name than in deed with most of their interaction taking place through the leaders of different factions.

This was a mixed blessing for me. I'd have almost unlimited operational flexibility, but limited support resources. Not that I especially wanted support resources. I was going to recover AuroraBlue. It wasn't an official Alliance Op.

One slight advantage I had going in was that, legally, I had some precedent. Lily was, officially, AuroraBlue's mother and, legally, I was Lily's mother. Hence AuroraBlue was legally my granddaughter and I would have standing if it came down to it. That was assuming I needed to deal directly with local officials. Ideally, this would be a simple in and out. Find my little girl. Give her a hug. Get in the boat with her and burn for the Black.

Still. I knew it was very unlikely to be so simple.

Which meant my first stop, when I actually talked to anyone, would be with the folks I knew in House Zenobia. They'd not need to know my Alliance connection. They knew me as Hale's Mayor, and Lily's mother. That should be enough to at least make contact and see if they could give me some pointers on the local culture.

But . . . why did it have to be another Gorram desert?

Expedition

Whether or not I really have a place on Dragon's Egg is moot. When I originally arrived at Hale's Moon, I hadn't intended to make a home for myself. It was just a 'place'. Some place I was, that later grew to be home. I'd become attached to the people there before they elected me their leader. Then, I really had no choice but to stay.

Now, with the new colony forming on Dragon's Egg, they didn't need a Mayor. They didn't have a town to call their own. They looked to me for leadership now only out if inertia, not because they actually needed me in the role. And I was OK with that. I had a day job that involved leadership without having anything to do with being an elected official.

I'd make a place for myself on Dragon's Egg. Or, more likely, above Dragon's Egg.

In all honesty, I had neither the skills nor the desire to be a frontier pathfinder. Breaking in a new colony world wasn't something I was suited to. While I had the basic survival skills down, the thought of considering "bathing" a luxury held no appeal. Roughing it on an operation was one thing. Roughing it because it was simply how you lived was another.

I'd leave the actual colonization to others. The miners who'd relocate from Hale's were far better suited to the conditions on Dragon's Egg than I was. I'd help. As I had before. But I had other responsibilities.

Right now, my focus was AuroraBlue.

Finally knowing that she had, in fact, survived the destruction of Hale's Moon felt like a weight lifting off my chest. I'd kept that hidden. People who knew me at all knew I was . . . displeased. But I hadn't really let the hurt show. Now, I knew she was alive. Now, again, I had something to focus on besides work.

AuroraBlue was already a target of interest for several organizations in the Intel community, my own included. Keeping my personal interest in her well being out of the equation had taken substantial effort but had proven well worth it. Tag knew, but, then, his knowing was part of what had gotten me selected for my current role.

Now, she'd slipped away from our immediate space to Al Raquis. I had to assume she was following somehow in Lily's footsteps in pursuit of the Ardra AI. Why? That was something I might never understand. I'd learned to consider sentient machines "People" in the same respect that I considered other Humans "people." But I would never, really, understand what went through their minds.

AuroraBlue was completely organic. As Human as I was. Moreso, maybe. But she somehow had the ability to think like a machine. I'd heard several terms used to describe what she could do: Savant, Living Computer, Mentat. The term didn't matter. Unlike the handful of others who shared her intellectual gift, wasn't an accident of nature. AuroraBlue had been made to be what she was.

And she was still my little girl.

If AuroraBlue was on Al Raquis, I would be on Al Raquis. Several of the Allinace's Intel services had assets in place on Al Raquis already. That would make my expedition to find and, if possible, recover Tiny Dragon somewhat simpler.

Though, even with support, knowing or otherwise, I didn't expect this to be easy. I just hoped I could complete my task before Lily woke up. I didn't want her to think her last close 'parent' had abandoned her if she restarted and I wasn't around.

I sent a message to x0x0 encrypted with her key and hoped she'd understand.

Finding our Dragon

She is so like her mother

Keep the coffee warm

Lonesome Ninja

Haley snores.

That she snores is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it means my sleep is often interrupted by the sound of a snoring Beagle. On the other, it means I am not entirely alone.

I'm not sure why I'm feeling the loneliness again, though I suspect it's emotional fallout from the absolute destruction of Hale's Moon and our impending deployment on Dragon's Egg. 'Brina's sent condolences from Ariel, but has been so wrapped up in their projects she hasn't been able to come visit. I still see Imrhien, but she spends much of her time with the former Blackburne refugees. I suspect they're trying to find a good way to rebuild their bar on the surface of Dragon's Egg. There's something to that thought I find mildly disturbing, but I can't put it into words.

Ultimately, it's not my problem any more. I'm not the Mayor of Hale's Moon. There is no Hale's Moon to be Mayor of any more, and I sincerely doubt Dragon's Egg will be looking for any sort of official leadership for a while. Lionheart's offered their services where needed, but the Alliance's Department of State isn't exactly beloved by Hale's former inhabitants.

The dynamic has changed. New folk looking to join the colony. Old folk choosing not to come along, preferring the rocks or some other colony world to breaking in a new one. And here, all I find myself caring about is my girls.

Lily, taken to the surface by Cody for . . . who the hell knew? I knew in my heart he was doing it because he thought it was for the best. Main reason he's still drawing breath. That, and x0x0 suggesting that maybe having her on the surface might be safer if Lily woke up and went feral. No one'd get et' but Cody in that case.

Not that I wanted him to get et'. But it was an effort of will to not take him behind the figurative woodshed for absconding with my adopted daughter.

AuroraBlue was a different matter.

With confirmation she was alive, there was something separate for me to focus on. I'd probably never figure her out, but that was beside the point. She was one of my girls. That meant I would do what I could do.

Tiny lost Dragon

An ongoing enigma

Mother will find you

Making do

I was in something of an odd place. When I'd first come to the Rim, I wasn't looking for anything specific: just a chance to do some soul searching and find a way to be at peace with myself. I'd never expected the folks on the little colony I'd found to tap me as their Mayor. I hadn't really embraced the role at first, but it gave me purpose and gave them some stability. It didn't hurt that my intimate knowledge of Alliance Military operations gave us an edge when things looked rather bleak. In time, I'd come to like the role of Backwater Mayor.

Sure, if I'd gone back to Ariel and the corporate desk job waiting for me I'd have had more resources and more people reporting to me than I did now. But somehow that wasn't the point. Even when I'd returned to my Intel position, I'd taken my role with the colony seriously. On some levels, I needed them as much as they needed me.

Now?

Now things were very much up in the air. At least for me. Hale's Moon was no more. Dragon's Egg, as they'd taken to calling the new colony - even if there was already a world by that name orbiting Qing Long, was an entirely different environment. Anything resembling a government for the colonists was pure inertia from their time on Hale's Moon. To be sure, in the confines of Dragon's Egg Station, there was a need for some sort of order. But that was taking care of itself. Folk who'd been elders in the old Colony were still looked to for guidance here. And people who could, and did, take on maintenance and organizational duties on the station simply stepped up and did it. It was a cross between a commune and a refugee camp, with a bit of anarchy thrown in for good measure.

It was working. At least for the time being. It wouldn't scale. But, for now, it didn't need to. If there was a crisis people would either fall back to old habits and turn to the natural, or traditional, leaders for guidance, or it would devolve into real anarchy until the situation resolved itself and people settled into some new order born from chaos. It was the way it was.

Unless everyone died in a hull breech or something.

The other job was a different story. For the time being, I had no real office. There was no way I would be setting up on Dragon's Egg Station. I didn't have enough faith in its construction, or our benefactors, to trust it to be, or stay, functionally secure. I could, and probably would, move back into the offices I'd had on the KHI facility. But that would mean commuting between the two since the colonists wanted me here. Whether they needed me here was a different question.

Until I had a real office again, I'd be operating out of my home: Wave Equation. The boat was less than ideal, but I couldn't risk keeping Saules Silencieuse that close to the station. Besides, the Corvette's crew had their own missions.

Though, on a personal level, none of that was costing me any sleep. What kept me up at night was my girls. Sabrina, I had no worries about. I missed her, but she was safe on Ariel doing her own thing. Whether our relationship could keep going like this I didn't know. But that was a question that would sort itself out. Lily and AuroraBlue were the larger concerns.

With Lily effectively "shut down" all I could do was make sure she looked comfortable. It was odd. She used to sneak onto Wave Equation sometimes and watch me sleep. The boat's security system allowed it, and my subconscious identified her as "friend." Even asleep, I didn't find her a threat so didn't wake. I think on some level I knew she was there when she did it and took some comfort from her presence. Now, it was my turn. Sit with her in the middle of the night. Make sure she wasn't, well, deteriorating, I guess, and just keep her company. No idea whether she could sense me or not, but I hoped she somehow knew that she wasn't alone. Wasn't forgotten. Was missed.

AuroraBlue I had to compartmentalize. Lily had gone in search of her directly and I'd done some indirect searches myself, but we had no confirmation either way. She'd been deep in the mines, somewhere near Mother Bot, when Hale's had experienced the core rebound. None of us knew for sure whether she'd made it off alive. Mother Bot hadn't, which wasn't comforting in this case. I wanted to believe she was still alive. I needed to believe she was still alive. I just didn't know, and it hurt more than I cared to admit.

It was all I could do to keep that from showing.

And where was Blue? The big AI was a distributed system, but Lily had, evidently, convinced him to consolidate into a single system. Had he made it out? He hadn't said anything to me in a while, but that was nothing new. I was used to Blue being silent for days to months at a time. But again, I didn't know. It was possible Doctor Sinclair knew but I hadn't spoken to her in weeks either.

Time to change that.

Time to change a lot of things, really.

Just wish the changes were because of a course I'd set, rather than one chosen for me by fate.

Things always in flux

Recursive code universe

Changes expected

Rarely are things what they appear

"So what're you going to do now?"

Niki's question was expected. Sitting in Wave Equation's cabin, docked with the Dragon's Egg transition "station," or "barge," or whatever you wanted to call the facility Blue Sun had conveniently donated to the population of the former Hale's Moon, nursing some 18 year old scotch, she knew things had not gone as I'd planned.

In fact, the complete loss of the Hale's Moon colony was something I'd never considered.

"Do what I always do: roll with it and improvise until I can get back to a plan," I replied with more confidence in my voice than I felt. While I had no doubt about picking up the pieces and getting on with things, the loss of the colony changed more contingencies than I was quite prepared to deal with.

The core rebound and subsequent structural collapse of the oblate spheroid formerly known as Hale's Moon had happened quickly. Too quickly. While most of the colonists, and transients, and bar patrons, had managed to get off before the rebound, many had been forced to leave with only the clothes on their backs. Some had scattered in their own boats or aboard impressed bulk haulers, freighters, or boats that had come to the rescue. A fair number had wound up on the hastily commissioned structure Blue Sun was now towing into orbit around a freshly released world. Some, it seemed, were looking to stay behind, or go back when the time came, to try and set up a rock mining operation in the debris field that had been their home. That might even work out for them: at least once the field got stable and whatever was going to settle back by natural gravity did its thing.

My communications installation on the surface? Gone. My techs had hastily pulled out what they could and slagged the rest, not trusting a simple Epic Catastrophe to do the job. The Mechanics on the KHI modular maintenance facility had their own problems. While it was in a stable orbit regardless of the gravity compression, there was no telling how much crap was going to get flung their way by the rebound. Since it wasn't intended to actually move as a unit, they'd quickly uncoupled the modules and pushed them out of harms way - trailing the Dragon's Egg station on their way to the new world.

That meant my operational base would be Saules Silencieuse or Wave Equation as needed. At least until we could get the KHI orbital back together and I could get my communications array's back in place.

My own operations were secondary though to the immediate needs of the colony. I was currently Mayor without a Town and, for the foreseeable future anyway, but they were still looking to me for some guidance. Once we reached the new colony, all bets were off. Without a town, they wouldn't need a Mayor, which meant I'd probably be out of a job. This wasn't my station, either, so I wasn't in a position to put down roots here. In fact, I had some nagging doubts about this entire situation. Nothing I could put my finger on yet, but it had me a bit on edge.

"Things will work out, Niki. They always do."

She laughed softly, finishing her scotch. "Seems to. For me though, with the rig stashed safe, it's back to coaching Lacrosse. You know where to find me if you need me."

I did. And suspected I would.

I wished I had it so simple.

There was too much happening at once, but I'd get a breather soon. A chance to step back and look a the big picture. A chance to refocus on the things I genuinely cared about. Like my girls.

The one wherein the Terraforming experiences an Epic Fail

Hale's moon had always been borderline as far as terraforming projects went. The mass profile was such that it could undergo compression to get a solid 1 G surface gravity, but it was very, very, close to the minimum mass to remain stable. In fact, it was so close to the minimum stable mass, that it didn't take much to upset equilibrium. Something like, say, a large autonomous mining machine digging a little too close to the transition layer between the normal and compressed strata.

It was likely we'd never know exactly what started the spontaneous disequilibrium, but once it started there was essentially no way to stop it. Even if we'd had working terraformers the chain reaction would run its course. Hale's Moon simply had too little mass to remain stable in it's artificially compressed state. The compressed core was starting to rebound against the mass of the upper strata and, like it or not, Physics was going to win the argument.

What that meant for the colonists was nothing short of catastrophic. The solid body would more or less tear itself apart. While not a massive Cortex Video style explosion, the core rebound would turn the upper strata into the equivalent of jello. With that, would come destruction of anything built on the surface, collapse of anything dug into the ground, and serious damage to the atmosphere. Once things were stable again, it was unlikely there'd be any usable biosphere left. Hale's Moon, for all intents and purposes, was dieing. And dieing quickly.

The only up side, if there was any up side, was that it wasn't happening over night. There was more than enough time to evacuate the colony before the core rebound completely demolished everything on the surface and made the moon itself too dangerous to occupy. Between the two orbital stations and passing ships that came to the colony's aid, the evacuation went far more smoothly than anyone would have expected.

But the emotional cost to the people forced to leave was tremendous. The feeling of loss was almost palpable. These were people who'd survived attacks by Reavers, Raiders, Rogue Alliance, Pirates, Smugglers, normal Alliance, revolutionary robots, and an environment barely able to support life. They were survivors. Hardy and hale. But even they couldn't win out when the world they called home itself turned against them.

So here I was: back from a recent mission to find myself in charge of a forced evacuation and the Mayor of a town that no longer existed.

Lovely.

But all was not lost. Not by a long shot. There were several potential places to resettle. From a newly opened world that'd just been released from terraforming, to some unsettled spaces on established worlds in the Kalidasa system. The details would come. The important part was the colonists had gotten off without a lot of injury and we'd have a place to go.

But . . . damn.

Not what I'd expected to come home to.

Tactical insertion

In theory, the plan was simple. I would go in and provide some low impact distractions that wouldn't produce a full alert, while Niki infiltrated the vehicle hangar and repossessed the stolen AR3. When they objected, she'd level the hangar on top of the other three vehicles while I upped the ante on the diversions. After that we'd evacuate and wait for pickup, which was already on station in orbit.

Of course, there were quite a few places in the plan where large fuzzy contingencies came into play. We had, effectively, zero support. While we would get some communications assistance from Saule Silencieuse, there wasn't anyone playing Archangel on this Op. And, while we had transport ready to pick up the rig when we recovered it, the boat was an unarmed civilian hire rather than a Navy drop ship. Functionally, this mission was entirely in our hands which meant improvise when necessary.

That was OK too. I'd dealt with improvised operations many, many, times. This would really be no different.

"Ready when you are," Niki said softly, surveying our separate planned ingress routes for the 5th or 6th time.

I nodded, confirming our communications links were good. "See you on the other side."

We took off in different directions with specific goals in mind. There were a lot of places where pre-planning hadn't been an option, but our general approach was to avoid contact as much as possible and try not to leave a trail of bodies in our wake. When Niki fired up the AR3 and started leveling the hangar around it there'd be enough wanton destruction. But we still weren't here to kill anyone. At least not specifically.

I'd already partially jacked the installation's comms, so we had a good idea what was going on. This time of night, the only people up would be a few guards and, possibly, anyone doing out doors testing on one of the rigs. They didn't do that often. Though, in our favor, unless they were refitting something, they usually kept the stolen AR3 fueled and armed. That would make Niki's job much easier.

She and I were able to keep track of each other's location using an encrypted comms relay. Nano bursts were difficult to track and, if you didn't know to look for them, easily overlooked even when they did nudge someone's detector's. That made it much easier for us to time our approaches and hold up when the other needed to reroute around an "obstruction" of some form: at least one of which wound up folded up, unconscious but alive, in a janitorial closet.

My job was, on many levels, the easier of the two. I had a lot of experience at avoiding detection in close quarters like this. Niki was surprisingly good, given her pure military background, but she'd have a tougher time of it getting into the hangar unmolested. The real tough part would be the startup sequence.

It took several minutes to fire up one of those big walker chassis. Much of it would be done without alerting anyone outside, at least if they weren't paying attention, that something was going on. It was only when the final power systems came on line that everyone in a 20 meter radius would know that the machine was about to come to life. When she flipped that last switch, she'd have about almost a minute and a half before she could start moving. The weapons would come on line almost instantly, and she'd be able to slew the torso, but she'd be stuck in the gantry until the legs came up and the cradle swung away.

That was when I'd have to work a miracle with their internal alarm systems. Because as sure as Lily liked candy, someone in that room would throw the alarm as soon as the AR3 came to life.

When the time came, I was well in position . I'd jacked into the installation's security feeds and managed to catch Niki on the screen as she deftly incapacitated one of the technicians and climbed into the AR3's cockpit. Whether the tech would survive the next few minutes, though, was a question I doubted either of us were going to stay around to answer or worry about once we were out of here.

A few minutes later, I saw the telltale motion of the motivators coming on line and the torso slew around the bring the guns to bare on the two partially completed chassis sharing the hangar with the stolen machine. The alarm started to sound almost instantly, but I was ready for that: silencing it before it could alert the base. Unfortunately, silenced alarm or not, there was no masking the thunderous racket of the auto-cannon lighting up to turn the other vehicles, and much of the hangar, to wreckage.

I altered the diversions: rerouting their communications and mucking about with their power, security, and everything else I could get into from my hide near their communications center. They had good systems, but they hadn't been prepared for this.

"Sea. Where's the fourth rig?"

There was concern in Niki's voice over the comm as she shouldered her way through the hangar door, the sheet metal not giving the forty five ton walker much resistance. Where was the fourth vehicle?

Between the sensor array in the AR3 and my patches to the installation's feeds, it didn't take us long to find it. Three miles off and closing at a run, one of the pilots must have taken it out for a joy ride as there wasn't anything specifically in the logs about it being out. Still, it meant Niki had a fight on her hands and I would have to start evacuating the installation now if I had any intention of making it out at all.

"Coming your way, Niki. Bearing 159 degrees, range about five thousand meters. I'm going mobile. Transport's inbound to the LZ. Just need to keep that rig busy for eight minutes, and we're out of here." Niki gave me a grunt of acknowledgement and turned her attention to other problems.

By the time I'd cleared the building a few minutes later, Niki and the other pilot had engaged. Even with the enhanced optics it was hard to follow the action in the darkness, but Niki's calm voice over the inter-vehicle freq was clear and calm as death.

"Son. You've got one opportunity to power down and walk away. Those gun ports aren't closed in 5 seconds, I'll end you where you are."

The other pilot didn't bother answering, but simply turned and opened fire.

Bad mistake.

From the records, Nikolasi Mombasa was the best pilot the unit had ever had. Now, I knew it was true. While I'd seen folk who were damn agile in a fighting suit, a suit was something you wore. The AR3 was 11 meters tall and 45 tons and Niki could make the thing positively dance.

It was over in under a minute. While her rig had taken some damage, her opponent was little more than a smoking crater. Not that either of us stayed around to watch the remaining fireworks. The installation had finally managed to muster some coherent response from their security force and had turned their attention to the escaping armored walker. Meanwhile, I took off in the opposite direction. While the transport would drop in to take the recovered AR3 back off world I had to get back to Wave Equation, which lead to a tense hour and a half cross country trek back to the hidden skimmer, and roughly the same amount of time back to my boat.

The post mission debriefing would be, at best, interesting. But it would have to wait. Right now, first priority was getting the transport and its cargo vectored some place we could stash it.

Plan comes together

New toys come at a great price

Will they be worth it?

Perimeters

Businesses are all about the bottom line. When they're looking at developing a new product, or changing something internally, they do an extensive cost/benefit analysis to determine whether there'll be a payoff and, if so, when. Usually some bean counters will hash it out with whoever came up with the idea they're looking at, and they'll come to a decision that'll hopefully help the company. At least if they're a smart company, they will.

The security side of business is somewhat more complex. There, the cost benefit analysis isn't so clear. It's all about risk analysis. What's the chances of a given scenario happening? How much will it cost to defend against it? How much damage will it do if it happens? Which is more economical: accepting a risk and paying for the consequences, or spending the coin to keep it from happening in the first place?

From our vantage point overlooking what amounted to an abandoned industrial park, it appeared the company that had stolen the AR3's had chosen to skimp a little on physical security. Given the planet's situation, they'd been making a safe bet. If I hadn't taken an interest in the theft, chances were they could have gone out here for months, if not years, with no one being the wiser. "Catch the attention of a Dragon" was probably not listed on their contingency plans.

Niki and I had been keeping up surveillance for several days, getting to know the routine of the bored-looking guards and the limits of the perimeter security fencing. We knew where they had the cameras, where the blind spots were, where they parked the stolen AR3 and, it appeared, the two knockoff's they'd partially completed. We'd also, rather, I'd also, jacked into the communications system undetected, giving us everything we needed.

They did most of their mobility testing at night, away from prying eyes. They'd even done some live fire with the machine's on-board weapon systems, figuring, correctly, that even the auto-cannon wouldn't be heard in the nearest settlement some 50 kilometers away.

"So, what's the plan? The real plan. Besides finding the rig."

I hadn't been keeping Niki from my plans, so much as working out details as the information came in. "Overall? We go in, take the rig. Use it to secure the facility, then transport the rig off-world. You, obviously, drive the rig. Details? Still working out a few specifics. I'm still debating how to handle these Corpers. Other then that, our transport is inbound for Highgate, about 18 hours out. An AR3's obviously too big to lift out of here in the Matagi, and the Corvette's on station doing comms relay for us, so I ordered up some help."

Niki gave me 'that' look, frowning slightly. Smart lady. Intel and Black Ops experience. She knew there were things I'd left out.

"Not sure why we're doing this, rather than calling in a Commando unit to hit this place with a couple drop ships. Unless . . ." She let her voice trail off for a minute, looking at me with those intense, dark, eyes, before finally saying what she'd probably been thinking the whole time. "Unless you've got no intention of giving it back, or even telling SpecOps you found it. Steal the rig from the people that stole it. Question is, what're you gonna do with it when we're done here?"

Part of me wanted to laugh. She was right, of course. I wasn't giving it back to the ADG or letting SpecOps know we'd recovered it. "Question is, what are you going to do with it after we're done, Niki. I'm not qualified to drive it. But no, we're not giving it back, and I'm not telling them we have it. I've got my reasons and I'll explain them on the boost out of here. But I'm going to ask you to trust me on this, ok? I know your reputation and I respect it. I just need you to trust me until we can get the rig out of here."

She just looked at me for a long moment. I could almost see the gears turning over as she decided whether or not to keep trusting me and whether she could take me if she decided this was all a bad idea. "Our deal holds, Niki. You can walk. Now, if you want. No coercion, no threats. I don't play that way. We do this recovery, I'll read you into the rest of it. After that, you don't want to play along any more, you can still walk. Hell. If you don't agree at that point, we can hard land the rig into a rock somewhere and make sure no one gets it. So you still in?"

"I'm in. I think you're crazy. But I'm in."

Plans come together

Crazy is as crazy does

All for a good cause

Back on the ground

With a population of less than three million, Highgate was the third most populous world around Qing Long. The entire subsystem had a population of under twenty million, a third of which lived on the system capital of Meridian. Which made Blue Dragon, the star's other common name, by far the least populated star of the five that made up the 34 Tauri system. In contrast, the metro area around the Alliance capital city on Londinium, had roughly twice the population of the entire Qing Long system.

It hadn't helped that the Miranda incident had cost nearly all of that world's three million people. The thirty thousand odd "survivors" had become Reavers, who'd gone on to kill countless thousands more in the years since through the Rim and Border worlds. While the Reaver threat was active, and the Alliance was actively denying they existed, the population around Qing Long had dropped even more as people evacuated for more densely populated worlds. Or, at the very least, moved from remote communities that the Reavers could easily target into the major settlements.

That had left entire towns abandoned. With the Reaver threat abated, those towns became prime grounds for squatters of one form or another. Smugglers. Pirates. Political refuges. Communes. People trying to get away from active civilization, but not so far away that they were completely out of touch.

It was also a near ideal place to set up a clandestine research center. Ready made infrastructure. Far enough from the center of things to glide under the radar. Close enough to population centers and resources that you didn't have to bring in absolutely everything from the outside.

That was what brought us to Highgate.

Tracking down the transport with the stolen AR3 had been a challenge, but we'd done it. Fortunately for us, they hadn't bothered with extensive secondary precautions at the abandoned industrial complex they'd chosen as a remote base. Also working in our favor, they were close enough to Highgate's main city that we could do fly close enough to the facility to get a basic recon without arousing any suspicion. We were just another boat on final for the capital, rather than an ELINT boat doing a preliminary pass on a target.

There was still work to do on the ground before we could attempt an infiltration, but we knew where we were going and had a good idea what we would face when we got there. Now, it was ground work and arranging a transport of our own.

If we pulled this off as I intended, we'd be coming home with some very expensive kit.

Back into the Black

Anyone looking at the modern Alliance Military structure, from Infantry on the ground to the Cruisers in orbit supporting them, would think Electronic Warfare was a lost, neglected, art. For the most part, the Alliance relied more on throwing people at problems than technology. After all, people were cheap. For the cost of just the electronics package on my Ritter&Lau, the Alliance could equip a whole squad of line infantry. If you threw in the cost of training? A single well equipped sniper cost more to put in the field than an entire platoon.

Pound for pound, the sniper was more effective. But to the Alliance bean counters, losing one sniper meant the entire investment was lost, whereas losing, say, two fire teams, just meant the platoon was weakened. It was a lot cheaper to replace a few lost infantry than to train and equip a replacement sniper.

The view may not have been especially popular with the men and women on the line, but it was certainly practical. Which led to the lost art of Electronic Warfare. Top shelf equipment was anything but cheap and it took a well trained crew to interpret the results. Intel was important, to be sure, but when you didn't care about loses and your primary enemies were backwater colonists who were lucky to have rifles, let alone encrypted FTL comms, you could afford to skimp on the EW suite.

I wasn't in the mainstream military.

Electronic Warfare ships were a wildly mixed lot, based on a variety of hulls with an even larger variety of specialties. General purpose ELINT boats like Saule Silencieuse, for example, had a different mission and, thus, a different load out than, say, an Early Warning Picket or a dedicated communications monitoring ship. The differences lay as much in crew specialties as differences in antennas and signals processing equipment. Fortunately, a creative crew could gather quite a bit of information from a target regardless of what their arrays were originally designed for.

The Corvette's EW officer contacted me shortly after we cleared Beaumonde's traffic control area. Between intercepting navigation beacons and the ELINT Corvette's own arrays, they'd managed to identify and track the transport through two more stops before losing it to the deep Black between Kalidasa and Qing Long.

"They shut off their pulse beacon after the last port, but we were able to track their power plant signature until they got out of range. Our navigator worked out the probable destinations given their known course. Qing Long's navigational net is incomplete but we'll update you if they come across the net."

I thanked him, then signed off. Qing Long, Blue Sun, was the most sparsely inhabited, most distant, star in the 34 Tauri system. The isolation was a mixed blessing though. You were far from prying eyes, but you were also far from resources and support, and travel times could become tedious.

"You play chess, Seana?" Niki asked after I set course and filled her in on our destination.

"I little. Though I suspect I'm about to be schooled on the finer points." I had to laugh. Even with Wave Equation's performance it would be a long flight, but I could think of worse ways to spend the time than learning chess from a rated master.

Could think of better ways too. But that was neither here nor there.

Recruiting

Nicolasi Mombasa was a compact woman, maybe 5 centimeters and 3 kilos bigger than I am. Short curly dark hair, dark eyes, and nearly as dark skin. Quite pretty, in a rugged, athletic, sort of way. We were much alike on some levels, from a lethality out of proportion to our compact size, to a military background neither of us publicly acknowledged. But we were also very, very, different.

Since leaving the service some years ago, she'd settled on Beaumonde and taken a job at a Tier II university as a Lacrosse coach. Kind of like me taking a job as a small town Mayor. No one would really look too deeply into that buried military background. Her affiliation with the university was, outwardly, the hook I'd used to arrange the meeting, claiming the local KHI parts warehouse was looking to get some advertising and good will by sponsoring the uni's Lacrosse program.

It was a thin cover, but plausible: something she'd see through but would hold up for the uni and anyone who asked.

"Miss Kawanishi, why are we really here? This isn't about new equipment and logo jerseys for the Lacrosse team."

She'd taken roughly fifteen minutes to get to the question, doing an excellent job of staying with her new identity the whole time. I smiled cheerfully and slid another couple of flimsies over to her across the table to join the list of gear and logo jerseys we'd been talking about. She gave it a cursory glance, then looked back over, trying to hide her recognition.

"Unit insignia and part of a tractor on a pallet? Not sure I understand."

ADG9, " The Chessmasters," were nearly as obscure as my own final unit had been, and their unit insignia was the kind of thing that showed up on Cortex shows about elite military units that were usually nothing more than rumors. Overall, the Advanced Defense Group was its own animal in the military. A combat evaluation unit specializing in exotic hardware, they tested new equipment and developed tactics to utilize it if it looked promising. The Chessmasters had been formed to test some very specific equipment, which was what had brought me to Beaumonde to meet Niki Mombasa.

She was doing a good job of concealing her reaction, but I could still tell what was going through her mind. I'd have been thinking much the same thing: how much does she know, and will I have to kill her? Not exactly a comfortable situation but one I was familiar with on either side of the table. It went with the job.

"Captain Mombasa. Let's just skip the rest of the game, OK? We're on the same side. At least were. I'm hoping we will be again. Give me a few more minutes of your time and, if you don't like what I have to say, we walk away. You go back to coaching Lacrosse and I try to find someone else who can do what you do."

"What is it exactly you think I do? And why the . . . ?" she replied, motioning to the images, deciding to not try and kill me for the time being.

I smiled faintly. She wanted to know ow much I really knew about her, the unit, and the piece of equipment on the pallet. All questions I'd be asking myself if our positions were reversed. "Captain, I know you recognize the unit insignia and the vehicle. At least by type."

She paused, then nodded towards the image. "Core of an AR3b. Minus the manipulators and legs. I'd guess it was Buskirk's rig from the partial markings, if Buskirk's rig wasn't in a warehouse. Where was this taken?"

"That was taken two weeks ago at a loading facility on Notterdam. Got loaded onto a small transport and shipped out here to the Kalidasa system, but it's not the only one that's missing."

She looked at me curiously for a long moment, then frowned, obviously not liking what I was implying. "Most of them got shipped back to the Fab when our mission ended and they idled the Chessmasters. They mothballed a Lance worth. Eight rigs."

"Yes. Four of them are missing from the warehouse. Dessault-Nissan can account for the rest of the ones that were returned, but there's four AR3b's on the loose. And you know the kind of threat that poses."

The AR3b "Archer" was, more or less, an anthropomorphic Roller. Based on a rough terrain construction vehicle, it had legs rather than tracks or wheels and manipulators for moving equipment. Unlike its marginally useful civilian kin, the AR3 mounted anti-personnel armaments, auto-cannon, and enough racked missiles to level several city blocks. As a military weapon, they weren't especially useful. More expensive and easier to hit than a Roller with the same firepower. But for pure shock value? An Archer shouldering a house out of the way was a good deal scarier than, say, a pack of Reavers.

"You're here because you want to get them back. I get it. But why me? Why not Buskirk or Sandoval?"

"Buskirk and Sandoval both have more covert operations experience than you do, true, but you've got as much experience piloting one of these things as anyone alive. Besides, Buskirk's on Sihnon and Sandoval's with another ADG unit. Who, I might add, doesn't know about this. Leaves you as my first and best choice for this recovery op. So. Are you in? You can say no, Captain. No threats. No coercion. You say no, I head to Sihnon and see if your old CO will come."

I'm sure her decision was made as soon as she realized why I was here. Lacrosse coach or not now, she was still a soldier at heart.

"I'm in. And call me Niki. Not active military any more so rank's don't matter. Just need to grab my jump pack and let the Uni know I'm taking some leave."

"OK, Niki. My boat's at the municipal pad. You be ready in eight hours?"

"I'll be ready in two. Just wonder where we're going."

Where we were going? First step was easy. Saule Silencieuse to get a final destination for the transport. Then? Then we would see.

This is what they pay me for

I feel like I've been neglecting my duties, even if the Colony usually manages to run itself. When it doesn't, Genni's stepped in to deal with things in my stead, or she's passed them on to Lionheart so the Alliance Liaison will actually earn her keep. While Hale's Moon is still, technically, under Martial Law, the fact is they haven't even been sending more than two man patrols to make sure things are as they should be. Why are we still under Martial Law? No idea. Something lost in the bureaucracy no doubt. We just ignore the mandate unless it suits us, and go on with our lives.

I've spent what time I can with family. Lily's constant curiosity and AuroraBlue's constant, well, confusing behavior is all I can say sometimes. Brilliant child. Or not-child, as the case may be, but she can be near impossible for me to figure out. Love her dearly. Will till I draw my last breath. Her and Lily both. But I won't claim to really understand either of them. Least not completely, or even as well as I'd like.

Lately, my 'other' job has been keeping me busy. The job I can't talk about, and only a handful of people even know exists, but takes an inordinate amount of time, and keeps a godawful lot of data flowing across my desk.

It was a conscious choice. I could have passed on the job, but then the data would be flowing across someone else's desk, and the spooks gathering the data would be reporting to someone else. Someone I probably wouldn't trust and would have to end at some point. So here I was, doing the other job.

Here, being a cafe on Beaumonde.

I'd seen a lot of data come across my desk since I started the position, but it was very rare that I found anything that would drag me out of the office to take it on directly. This was one of those situations. I'd found something that, potentially, tied into issues I'd been dealing with on Hale's Moon for far too long, and I'd come to Beaumonde to talk to the only person I considered a likely source for good information.

The question, of course, was whether she would even show up, and whether she would talk to me if she did. If not, this particular situation could become very . . . complicated.

Bucket full of Crazy

Owl once told me of a belief the North American First People's had on Earth that Was. How they revere the Mad as Spirit Touched. Other cultures had similar beliefs. Unfortunately, or, maybe not so unfortunately, the Mad were rarely revered on the Rim colonies. Maybe Beaumonde, or one of the other high population worlds, could afford the luxury of coddling the Mad. Small time operations like our little slice of Heaven couldn't.

But that didn't stop us from getting our share of Crazy.

Sometimes by the bucket full.

Lily called him Stig. Or "The Stig," as the case was, based on some character from some Cortex feed out of Londinium that she liked. One of her "News" shows. Another offworlder, in my office, talking a bit crazy. In this case, some selective amnesia and a delusion about being married to me. At least that was how he started off. The married part vanished quickly, in part, I suppose, from not wanting to get shot for trying to push the issue.

While it may have been a while since I'd spent time with my wife, I wasn't too keen on someone, anyone, making the claim they were married to me when they weren't. I also wasn't too keen on folk coming into my office armed, and not being willing, or able, to take off the full coverage EVA helmet they were wearing. Just didn't sit right after the last stranger who walked into my office.

Thinking of which, neither Gallagher or any of the locals had any insight into who the man was or where he'd come from. Just another enigma in the series. A long, long, series. Which didn't seem to have any sort of end in sight.

Lily didn't know anything about either Stig or the guy in the freezer. But she did need a favor, something about recovering some information from an Alliance officer. She made me promise not to ask why she needed it. I made her promise not to ask how I was going to get it.

It seems that Major Siamendes had some images that Lily needed. While I could, probably, go directly and acquire them myself, I had other options. Considering how much additional pain the Intel position was causing me, it was time I exercised a minor abuse of power in order to benefit my kinfolk.

Using the secure link, I sent a message up my own food chain that would, very shortly, trickle back down Pepper's food chain, to her, with orders to turn over the information to someone up her chain of command, and to delete any copies of it. The data would get passed up a couple more layers, over a couple of silos, and then back down to me. All "above the boards." Where "above" translated into the deep realms where Intel liked to do what it did.

Getting the data back this way might interfere with Pepper's investigations into x0x0, which was something I ultimately didn't mind. Had never been entirely comfortable with that in any case. As for why Lily needed the information, I was curious, but I would also keep my promise.

My daughter needed it. In this case, that was enough.

Buckets of Crazy

The Mad play by their own rules

So we join their game

Prognosis

It might have been better if I'd simply killed him.

People have asked my why I carry the fifties. The large bore round means they don't have a lot of capacity and the charge means they kick like a mule when they fire. The weapon could break a big man's wrist, let alone that of a 41 kilogram woman. Of course, I'm stronger than I look and I don't miss often so I'm willing to trade ammunition capacity for stopping power. Plus, a lot pf practiced mated with a good recoil compensator makes up for my size.

Most times, when a man takes a .50 round to the chest, he winds up in the morgue. This time, he got to the infirmary before he bled out Problem was the half inch slug made a mess of his chest. Lungs, heart, liver, a bunch of other organs I'd remember if I had to play field medic again. The doc wasn't so sure she'd be able to save him given the resources we had available, which meant putting him on ice.

Stasis wouldn't cure what was ailing you, but it'd keep you from dieing of it whilst the medics figured out how to cure what ailed you. In this case, lead poisoning. The medlab on the Sun Tzu, or one of the bigger hospitals on a world that considered itself a Colony, rather than a glorified mining settlement, would be able to patch him back together. Except the Alliance wasn't willing to resurrect my attacker until we knew more about him, least not without my pulling strings I didn't want to pull. We could ship him off world to one of the big medical facilities, but then we'd have to deal with outsiders wanting to know why we were leaving a guard with him.

Which left stasis.

Wasn't the ideal solution, but it would have to do for now. So far, we hadn't turned up much on the man in the box. History and the like, yes. Motive? Nary a clue. Had a strong sense that the Sabine he'd talked about wasn't the Sabine I knew here on Hale's Moon. Which led to a number of other possibilities, all of which we'd have to pursue. Each one of which made less sense than the one before.

Who knows. Maybe it was something Niska tossed out there. A bit of attempted payback for sending a couple of his Orokana hito-gumi home in body bags. Didn't seem likely, but it would be easy enough to check.

For now though, it was back to business.

Thankless

You never quite get used to being shot at. As a soldier, and a field operative, I'd faced quite a few rounds directed my way. Since coming out the Rim and settling on Hale's Moon, I'd probably faced more gunfire per annum than I ever had when I was on active duty. Between Reavers, Raiders, Alliance Loyalists, and warbots, we'd seen more flying lead than in a rad-shielding foundry.

Usually, the flying lead isn't in my office. Not that I was entirely surprised to have a visitor come in, act peaceful, then draw a piece on me. Thing was, unlike the old office in Town Hall, there was only one door in or out of my new office and the side and back walls were made out of the same material they made spaceship viewports out of. Once I triggered the locks, the only way out was for someone on the outside who had the codes, that'd be Genni, Gallagher, Lily, and the captain of our Militia, to unlock it from outside, or for me to manually do it myself. Not something I was likely to do under duress.

While this wasn't the first time someone's waltzed in and pointed a gun at me, it was the first time someone's done it saying they were delivering a message. Odd thing about it is I only know one "Sabine" and don't recall there being any bad blood between us. Subject to interpretation, of course. Might be someone planning to shoot me as a message to her, but that made not a whit of sense either. The man had the air of someone who know their way around a firearm, but not that of a trained assassin. If he had been, he'd never have selected my office and certainly wouldn't have let himself get distracted enough to let me draw my sidearm.

Being curious about why Sabine would send someone to shoot me, I tried to get him to back down. Fact was, there was no way back out of the office through the locked door and I'd already tagged the silent alarm to Genni. She'd have either the Sheriff's department, or the Militia, or both, here shortly. If she didn't open the door herself and shoot the man in the back with a scattergun or that old .45 she was so fond of.

Guess he either didn't care about getting out alive, or thought he was somehow going to shoot me and still get out of a locked room. Either way, he hadn't counted on me being able to move as fast as I can, especially when someone's got a gun pointed at me. His round missed. Mine didn't. My cushion, though, would never be the same.

Neither would his chest.

We got him to the Infirmary as fast as we could, but the prognosis is dicey. Not sure whether he's going to wake up or not, or live if he does. Be a shame if he dies too, seeing as I'm at a loss to why he was really there. Officially, the Sheriff's office would investigate the incident. Gallagher had some strings he could pull to find out what was really going on, as could I through my other contacts.

Just another reminder how thankless this job can be sometimes. Any of them, really. Public, private, or otherwise.

Message at gunpoint

You underestimate me

Lesson learned but once

Big damn snake

Lily's back. Consider it a right good thing too, but some part of me feels . . . I don't know how to describe how I feel. Distant, maybe. Not by choice. There was a time in the not so distant past when I would have been the one, boots on the ground, recovering one of my own. Now? Now I've got so much information flowing across my desk that I can barely focus tight enough to nudge someone else in the direction I should be going myself.

Does success as a Director level asset require failure at a more intimate level?

No. It shouldn't. It doesn't. I've got my finger on the pulse of half the Rim. The failure is being unable to pick out a single thread from a tangled web, not a failure of intent or will. I see the forest. It is just hard to keep sight of individual trees, even when they are what is most important.

What is most important to me? On a deep personal level, it's my girls. All of them. Daughter, sister, mate, friend. Role doesn't matter so much. Probably why it feels like failure to have not been the one bringing Lily home. Or not knowing half the time, in spite of the tracking, what AuroraBlue's up to. Not seeing Sabrina face to face in far, far, too long. Not being able to help x0x0 recover from whatever she's going through. Probably something of her brother's doing.

What I hadn't expected was the first time I see Lily after she gets back, is when she stops by to bring me a present. And, by present, I mean the carcass of a 30 meter long snake. At least the head. That's all she could drag into the office, leaving the rest of the body to trail out the door, down the hall, down the steps and out into the street. It was that gorram long.

Didn't even ask how she got it in, or at least for the moment, where she got it. I strongly suspected it was related to the snakes that had bit x0x0 and caused her discontinuity incident. Snakes didn't get this big. Not even on Blackburne, which had plenty of altered life from all the radiation damage. No, this thing was something else.

What'd it eat? Horses? Gorram thing was big enough to make cattle it's primary meal, and Hale's Moon simply didn't have enough large life to support a predator this big. Wouldn't even go into how something could grow that big in the first place. Close as I could find in the records were a couple in the 10 to 12 meter range, with rumors of ones approaching 16 meters. But 30? Here?

I had the carcass hauled off and put into cold storage in one of the old underground bunkers we used for warehousing sometimes. Need to get someone with a good deal more experience to look at it than I had, but I'd still have tissue samples stored some place safe. Chances were this big ass snake hadn't grown up on Hale's. Given it's bigger than record size, chances were it wasn't even a natural creature. Seemed like it was either released from, or escaped from, a lab somewhere.

Now that'd be a surprise.

I'd know more soon. But, for now, Lily home safe was what mattered to me most.

And then they had a party . . .

Life on Hale's Moon seems to have several distinct states. There is "calm," in which life is life, people go about their business, and the only explosions are intentional and originate in the mines or with younguns blowing off steam. There is "bad," in which the explosions are either unintentional, or are intentional and accompanied by swarms of flying high velocity projectiles. And then there's "weird," in which case something is happening that just leaves you scratching your head. Like, say, robot revolutions and the like.

It was rarely entirely in one mode or another, and Weird for some might just be normal for someone else. But that's the nature of life in general. For me, it could easily swing through all three main modes in a single day. It was something I'd grown accustomed to. Hale's Moon was some kind of vortex that drew improbable events into it's shallow gravity well with abandon, so you got used to it or your lived somewhere else.

Which said a lot about the folk who moved here voluntarily.

Firefly's Bar had been a going concern on Blackburne for years before they had to abandon the Downport and former citizens had scattered across the Rim. Nack and his kinfolk had chosen Hale's Moon to relocate, along with quite a few of the others who'd called Blackburne home. Which meant bringing Firefly's with them in spirit, if not form, and with the long running bar, the traditions and parties and many of the folk who'd made it what it was.

Firefly's would always have a special place in my heart. I'd met 'Brina there and it had been where we went to dance together for most of our relationship. I'd made other friends there too, some of whom I'd grown quite close to. Good memories. And a few sad ones. Plus getting shot at, or shot, more than once, but that was another matter.

I had to admit though, I felt a little under-dressed at the anniversary party. Everyone else had shown up in formal wear, or at least their Sunday Best. Me? I'd hadn't much time to change between dealing with my duties and arriving at the party, so I showed up wearing my usual leather pants, jacket, silk top, and gunbelt. I was comfortable mind you. Just felt under-dressed for the occasion.

I didn't stay as long as I might have liked. Got a chance to talk to Nack a spell, see x0x0 and her newly adopted Catherine, and even a few minutes to give AuroraBlue a bit of motherly affection before Cody called her away to home, being a tad late for a youngun. Couldn't say I was thrilled to see her go, but I didn't let my annoyance with Cody show. He was trying to help Lily raise her and I couldn't fault him for the effort. Hell, it seemed he was having better luck than my own folks had trying to raise her on Ariel.

Still, didn't have anyone to dance with, 'cept Imrhien, who already had a full card, so called it early.

On the weird side, a couple days after the party, Catherine and Kasuko were talking in my office while they thought I was distracted with something else. Hadn't quite gotten a handle on Kasuko yet. Nice girl. Pretty. Intelligent. Working as some sort of hacker for one of the small time Pirate operations that sometimes stopped by for fuel and food. Obvious she fancied me, though she knew I was hitched.

Thing was, she was trying to teach Catherine to hack on a small wearable computer she had. Little thing. Not unlike my own Deck, but an uprated Civilian unit, not a milspec black box. I heard her saying something about breaking into the portable I kept on my desk. At first blush, it'd look as easy as it was. It was supposed to be as easy as it looked. Nothing more than the usual commercial grade ICE you'd find on any world in the 'Verse.

Except it wasn't. Not really. Be interesting to see what she tried, if she tried, and how long it took her to figure out that there were several layers between that front end and anything interesting. My systems had been built by professionals, to stop professionals. More than professionals. My systems had been hardened to make it difficult for even an AI to get in, though just how effective that was remained to be seen. It wasn't like Blue and I were playing war games in the back room.

At least not any more.

Would have to see how x0x0 reacted to Catherine learning the art of exploitation. Assuming, of course, she did learn about it. I'd keep my eye on them for a spell. Nothing obvious, but it wouldn't do to let x0x0's little girl get in trouble, or to get careless around someone who worked for a small time pirate. Wouldn't do at all.