And then the Mercenaries quit...

I've never pretended to like mercenaries.  They have their uses, sure.  A military force that can be deployed on short notice with little concern save the layout of coin.  They may not be cheap, but you're not having to worry about their long term care and feeding.  They're like construction workers, only in reverse.  Rather than coming in, putting up a structure, then leaving when the contract is over, they come in, tear down a structure or two, then leave when the contract is done.  Either way, once they've done the job, you don't really care what they do after that.

Though, to be sure, folk from the Carpenter's Craft Hall aren't likely to come back and shoot you later.  One of the several downsides of hiring mercenaries.  With no incentive save coin, there's little inherent trust and nothing to say they won't take a lucrative contract against you in the future.  Few will actually turn on an employer during a contract, as that would effectively destroy their reputation.  But once a job's finished?  It's accepted that they are free to take any contract they want.

Technically, I know why the Alliance hired Cerberus to provide security for Dragon's Egg and picked up the tab.  It was actually fairly common on the smaller Border and Rim colonies to hire Private Military Contractors to handle the day to day security duties where it was too expensive to deploy an actual Federal unit.  Some worlds, like Hale's Moon, had their own local Militia and Law, but they were the exception.   Dragon's Egg had a lot of folk who'd served in Hale's Militia, but they were willing to put up their guns and deal with something other than Reavers and a desert world trying to do them in.  Not that most of them didn't still have their arms, and a case or two of Blastite in the basement.

With the wedding and all, and looking after the feeds to keep Lily "useful," I hadn't been paying over much attention to the goings on surface side.  It came as a bit of a surprise, if not a shock, when Uncle Sobi sent a wave to inquire if I'd known whether Cerberus had actually dropped their contract, or whether their leader was just trying to get the unit fired for "Conduct not befitting a Security Officer."  Seemed Jet had gotten himself more than a little drunk and taken to threatening Sobi, Cody, Lily, and other patrons at The Signal.  Was proud of my little girl, how she handled it though.

I'd have to confirm the contract status officially with Lionheart, not that I couldn't extract the information myself.  It was polite to ask, and all.  But if they really had packed it up, we'd have a bit of a gap in coverage.  Blue Sun could easily, and likely would, dispatch a company security team to take over.  Thing was, the colony already felt too much like a Blue Sun company town.  Since KHI didn't have any assets here officially, I couldn't well call upon that resource.  Which left either seeing what we could do about reforming the local Militia and instating a Sheriff, or seeing if Lionheart could either hire on another security firm or convince District to put some Federals on the ground.

Fact was, a single Marshal could probably handle Law Enforcement for the whole colony, but he'd be hard pressed to fend off a real attack.  Though there were probably enough folk left with Militia training to deal with that, worse came to worse.

Just left a few questions hanging, and me without many answers.

Not short on ideas.  Just answers.