Stepping away

My dislike of Mercenaries is well known.  My dislike of a certain, specific, mercenary group is also well known.  When they were shown the door after abandoning their contract, I was more than a little amused.  In fact, I was actually quite pleased with the development.  They were gone and we would no longer have to deal with their ass clownery.

That was, until they came back.

I should have known they would come back and interfere somehow, like trying to blockade the port facility or something equally stupid.  But their half assed-blockade wouldn't last.  The only question was whether Blue Sun would send in assets to deal with it, or whether the Alliance would divert a passing Patrol Frigate to clean up the mess.

In either case, the mercenaries would get their collective asses handed to them and, with any luck, would find their gene pool had been rather thoroughly chlorinated.  Regardless, it wasn't my problem.  I had places to be and even with one of their idiot pilots shooting at me, they were going to do little more than scratch the paint on my boat.

I'd bill them for it later.  Actually, I wouldn't.  I'd extract it from their funds somewhere along the line, though with their impending demise it seemed prudent to charge their existing accounts rather than put a lien against future contracts.  I had a feeling that there wouldn't be many future contracts.  In fact, once I took care of some personal matters I would put some effort into assuring the best contract they got was playing security guards to Uncle Ramsey's Traveling Medicine Show and Petting Zoo.

Amazing what happens to your contract base when all of the references list your performance as "Tāmen màorán bǐ hóuzi qiú" and the reviewers say "I ne budet nanimatʹ ikh dlya zashchity ot musornoy svalki."  Which was probably better than if I pursued my much deeper desire involving Haiku and a power stapler.  No, adding them to the list with Niska would have to suffice.

Annoyeth not a dragon.
For they are mysterious beasts, powerful and cranky.
And you are small and crunchy and taste good with Wasabi.

 Of course, even without my help the reputation they would gain for turning on their employer would more or less end it for them.  No one hires a mercenary unit with a reputation for betraying their clients.  No one.  Except the overwhelmingly desperate or the frightfully stupid.  This one they'd done themselves.  No need to intervene to assure their destruction.  Though there was no harm in helping the process, was there?

They, though, were not why I was stepping away from Dragon's Egg for a brief spell.

As I have every year since it happened, I am taking some time to pay respects to Caitlin's memory.  I always said a prayer for her on the anniversary of her death.  I suspect I always will.  My first true love.  My first tragic loss.  The event colored my decisions for years and led me down the path that brought me here.  The Ice Queen was born with her death, with dire consequences.

Where I had created a small Shinto shrine for the purpose on Hale's, and salvaged it when we evacuated, I'd never set it up here on Dragon's Egg.  Now, a month after the anniversary, it was time to find a proper place for it on this still near-pristine world.  Her memory deserved it. And, on some level, Dragon's Egg probably needed it.

The advantage on Dragon's Egg over Hale's Moon was the relative size of the world.  Where Hale's had been a marginally suitable moon, slightly below the minimum size for gravetic compression terraforming, Dragon's Egg was considered a full size world.  There were places I could go far, far, from the main colony and scattered settlements where I could place the shrine in peace and spend a few days with myself and her memory.

The O shiri no piero could look for me, but they'd never find Wave Equation on the ground.  The last thing they'd seen was my boat burning for orbit, leaving them in my wake.  They may have considered the possibility I'd turned and re-entered atmo on the far side, but their dorogaya igrushka grade sensor suite wouldn't have much chance of finding me.  Which was just how I wanted it.

You think you have won
We do not fight the same war
You will learn in time