Un-planning events

The town hall meetings on Dragon's Egg have changed character over time.  While Blue Sun was an original sponsor of the transition from the failed colony on Hale's Moon to the new location on Dragon's Egg, they had originally been somewhat hands off in the dealings.  Never mind that many of the "abandoned" facilities we'd "discovered" on the newly opened world belonged to them.  Officially they had been one of the contractors along with Ling Standard, Westinghouse, and Weyland Yutani, responsible for finally completing the terra-forming project.  No coincidence then that once the colony was established, they would take a more active role.

Except, I really didn't want to live in a Company Town.  Even if I had an understanding with the head of said company.  The Alliance presence was still there, but the friction had grown between the Alliance officials and the Cerberus Mercenaries to the point where Lionheart was barely willing to set foot on the planet.  It didn't help that there was some funny accounting going on where the Alliance was paying their obligations, but the Mercenaries playing rent-a-cop were claiming they weren't getting paid.  Bethany had my sympathy, even if it wasn't my problem.  Of course, the data was somewhere in the Sea, but I didn't care enough to pull it out.

I'm not sure why Simon decided to announce a date for the wedding at this latest Town Hall meeting.  Not many people there, and of those that were, only a few had been there for the original announcement and even fewer probably cared.  Worse, I'm not sure why he announced it would be here on Dragon's Egg.

In spite of his protest to the contrary, I couldn't see my parents, or, Buddha forbid, Grandfather, coming out to this frontier world.  Let alone a Blue Sun "company world," as it was becoming.  I didn't even want to consider what Grandfather's security detail would make of what passed for 'security' on Dragon's Egg.  Jet's offer to provide services aside, I had no desire to have he or his people involved in even the slightest way with my wedding.  I believe Niki's term for them when last we talked was "Ass Clowns."  But then, an ADG pilot was entitled to a low opinion of Mercenaries.  Not that I didn't share her opinion.

No, it was almost certain we'd have two ceremonies as I had had before when I married 'Brina: one on Ariel with the family, one out here on the Rim for the people we knew out here.  Though that seemed to be a much smaller group than it had been.

That thought brought home how distant I felt here.  When I'd arrived on Hale's Moon, they had needed someone with my skills and experience.  The situation demanded it.  Here?  Now?  The new colony didn't have any active enemies.  Blue Sun and the Alliance were paying the bills for the most part as things ramped up to make the colony self sufficient - if beholden to Blue Sun - and paid mercenaries were taking the place of Hale's home grown militia.  They didn't need technical advice.  They didn't need me to smuggle in or otherwise acquire vital supplies.  They didn't want any sort of leadership.  Most of the people I'd known on Hale's Moon and cared about had gone to other worlds, leaving only a handful who still remembered how things had been.

There were still reasons for me to be here, of course.  Some of them were deeply personal.

But bring my family out here for a wedding?

No.  Not going to happen.

I would sooner hire a liner to take those few people on the Rim I cared about to Ariel, in first class accommodations, and put them up for a week than bring my parents here.  We'd have a ceremony out here for those who couldn't, or wouldn't, come coreward for the "real" one.  The folks here deserved that much at least.  And the party that went with it.

When it happened . . .