Uninvited memories

Talking to Owl tends to bring back memories. Our relationship was . . . different. That's really the only way to describe it. The Government Spook and the Freelancer. Thrown together off and on by mission circumstances, over a very rough period in history. Sometimes working towards the same goals and sometimes working at cross purposes, but never directly opposed. Never the other's primary target. Fortunate, since one of us would have come out of it quite dead. As a Freelancer, Owl had more flexible and varied mission profiles than I had. But she'd also taken more risks. The Intel community was notorious for tossing Freelancers to the wolves when they needed a scapegoat, or just needed to eliminate an inconvenient knowledge base.

Most of our missions together had been over a brief span after the war, before I'd been re-designated "Special Asset: Technical" from "Special Asset: Tactical." When we'd seen each other in the field, it usually meant someone was going to die. I was a different person back then. Still cold. Still angry. A mask of zen calm concealing the turmoil within. It was no wonder her memories of that period were more pleasant than my own. Some of the memories were painful. Like the one our talk the other night brought back to the surface.

The war will be over soon, but none of us know it. Not yet. And even if I knew I wouldn't really care. We're on Ares, around Boros in the Georgia system. We've been inserted to deal with a specific target. Arion deSilva had a distinguished career with the Alliance, retiring a Colonel before the war. The Indies have made him a General. He is a master strategist, responsible for several Independent victories, and a thorn in High Command's side.

I am here to kill him.

General deSilva is visiting an Indie listening post in a remote area of Ares, sharing the love with his troops. We're a bit over two thousand meters from the well camouflaged command building, on a wooded shallow hillside, barely five hundred meters from their perimeter. Roughly fifty meters to the side, and a bit further up the hill, my spotter's waiting for him to make an appearance.

Her optics give a broader field of view than I have through the high power scope resting on the back of my Ritter&Lau 415 sniper rifle. We're both suited up in passive camouflage with infra-red damping, a phase change material absorbing heat to keep our signature close enough to the background that thermal imaging won't see us. A hair fine fiber optic strand runs between us, so our only RF radiation is a couple of pico-watts escaping from our gear. We're traveling light and we're both small, making us a hard target for seismic sensors as well.

This level of precaution would be overkill anywhere else and is probably overkill here too, but this is a listening post and if the Indies have any sophisticated sensors here is where they'll be deployed. Their patrols walk the perimeter at semi-random intervals but their closest approach is roughly four to six hundred meters from our position. The nearest actual installation, an 18mm auto-cannon emplacement about a thousand meters from us.

I've worked with my spotter before. Her name is Amanda. She's a year or so younger than I am, a little taller, not much heavier. She's blond, and pretty, but we aren't exactly friends. We're lovers, but not because I have any deep attachment to her. I sleep with her in a vain effort to chase the chill from my Ghost with the warmth of another human body.

It doesn't work.

Caitlin's loss is still too fresh in my mind. Too near. It will be years before I can let go but right now I'm concentrating on the mission. I don't hate the men and women in the listening post below, or the General who I have come to kill. Hating them will not bring Caitlin back. Will not warm the cold places in my chest.

We wait for hours, patiently, silently. Then I see the target acquired flag in the corner of my Head's Up. Amanda's spotted our target and fed me the position. Through the scope, I see the General standing close to the listening post's side entrance. His assistant, Lieutenant Colonel Li-Hue Sue, a couple meters from him, holding a mildly animated conversation. She's another former Academy graduate who left the Alliance military to join the Independents. A worthy target in her own right.

I don't need to ask Amanda to check for spotters. She already has. A few moments after giving me the target flag, she sends the 'Clear to Fire.'

I take a slow breath, hold it, consciously slowing my heart rate, relaxing into a surreal calm. Through the scope I can see both targets clearly. Everything in crystal clear focus. The scope's passive systems are already done computing the range and windage. I settle the reticle on target and ever so gently squeeze the rifle's trigger.

The 415 fires a 400 grain 10.54 millimeter round from a choked down 20 millimeter cartridge. With a muzzle velocity a bit over 12oo meters a second, it delivers an impact energy of almost 19000 joules. At those energies, a target's body armor doesn't matter.

Without a compensator, the massive recoil would break my shoulder. With it, the weapon barely moves. A heartbeat goes by. Another. I've shifted targets a hair's breadth and squeeze off another round between beats while the first is still in flight.

Through my scope, I watch a man die. I don't know him. I don't care. His aide barely has time to recognize the splatter of blood on her clothing before the second round finds its mark and her span ends as well.

A moment later and we are ready to bug out, our mission done, when the auto-cannon opens up. Their acoustic system can only give them a general direction based on the crack of a near hypersonic round, but it is enough for them to start spraying the hillside around us with fully automatic fire.

I'd ranged the auto-cannon hours ago, and reset the scope to its preset. At this range, the shot isn't a challenge. I fire three rounds in rapid succession, the first two taking out the cannon's gunner and loader, the third slamming into, and through, the weapon's breach. The cannon silenced, my magazine empty, I ask Amanda for a target update.

Silence.

I ask again, and again, nothing. It's possible that in the hail of auto-cannon fire, we've lost the fiber optic link. But no. I still have telemetry from her but it takes a moment for me to recognize what I'm seeing on the display.

Moving as quickly as I can through the trees and undergrowth without fully compromising my position, I slap in another magazine and work my way to Amanda's position. Sporadic gunfire from the post tries to find us, but they only have a general location. They're still too far away and too confused to see my well camouflaged form through the trees.

Thirty seconds later, I reach Amanda's position and confirm what I'd surmised from the telemetry. Our suits are light armor, at best. They could stop a handgun or slow down a carbine, but against a cannon, they might as well be cotton. Through random chance, an 18mm round has impacted and detonated against Amanda's collarbone. I can take some solace in knowing she didn't suffer.

In the distance two, possibly three, patrols are starting to work towards us. They're moving carefully, trying to stay to cover. They know there's a sniper. The sudden silence of the cannon giving them reason to be cautious.

I don't know Amanda's faith, so whisper a prayer asking for Buddha's wisdom to guide her Ghost on the next stage of her journey. It's all I can do. That, and offer an apology for what I must do next.

Knowing I may need it, I snag the heat sink canister from her suit and the spare from her pack. Along with with her macros. Her sighting optics give less magnification than my scope, but a wider field of view. In any case, I don't want them to fall into the hands of an Indie patrol. Finally I snag her side arm and the two spare mags, then rig a demo charge to deal with anyone who decides they want to touch her lifeless shell.

In the distance, I can hear a skiff lifting off. Even if they stay low, they'll be able to cover enough ground quickly enough to make my life miserable. Shifting back into cover a few meters away from Amanda's body, I sight in on the rapidly rising skiff.

It's a gunship. Weapons pods under stub wings and a small cargo bay for an infantry fire team, currently manned by a door gunner on each side. It's cockpit and engines are lightly armored. More than the rifle can punch through, but that doesn't stop me.

As they stabilize, trying to get their bearings, I sight the pilot through his armored canopy and start to fire rounds in rapid succession. The first one spalls the canopy in front of him, drawing his attention as the second and third rounds slam into the clear polymer armor almost on top of each other. The forth round breaks through, but deflects, ricocheting off his back seater's helmet. The pilot glances back at his gunner and I put my final round through the fist sized hole in the canopy in front of him.

I don't wait to see the skiff go down, taking its dead pilot, unconscious gunner, and helpless door gunners with it. I have to move. Now. Inside a hundred meters I've stripped the scope and compensator from the Ritter&Lau and fired off a small demo charge in the weapon's firing mechanism. It had served me well, but with no ammunition and active pursuit, it will only slow me down.

Ares is not friendly to the Alliance, so I can expect no help from the locals, and over the next three days I play cat and mouse with the Independents. Eventually, tired, dirty, low on ammunition, they manage to extract me. I've covered nearly a eighty kilometers across Ares' rolling forested hills and, when they get me back to base, they treat me like a Gorram hero.

I'm not a hero.

I'm a soldier.

I've lost my spotter, and left eleven men dead. They pin a medal on my chest and say I've done a great service to the Alliance. But all I can think of are the faces I saw in my scope. They've given Amanda a medal, posthumously, as well. I ask for, and receive, permission to deliver it to her parents on Albion in person.

I do it for her memory. But this kindness does nothing to warm my Ghost. I am still cold and empty.

I am still the Ice Queen.

Explain to me again why I took this job?

There are times when "it's been quiet" is the last thing I want to be in a position to say. My role in Intel comes in bursts, which is probably for the best given my personal feelings about asset management and playing political games up the food chain. Both roles I'm good at, but don't especially enjoy. I'm much happier as a tactical lead or, better, a tactical asset. I would much rather Do than order others to do for me.

It's probably a kindness that I'm positioned where I am, out in the boondocks of the Kalidasa system. Much of the Intel comes in through more or less regular channels. Mission reports from the normal Alliance Military units. Local feeds from the colonies. A few active organic assets doing what they do. All of it very interesting to someone, somewhere, who can glean useful intelligence from the minutia of day to day operations.

My specialty was always covert, clandestine, operations, usually involving Hard-Site penetration. Get in, deal with the target however required, get out. Either gathering information or removing a threat, I was a Sneak specialist. I still am a Sneak specialist. It's just that now I'm doing more managing than sneaking, and don't especially enjoy it.

With the colony still under Martial Law and Alliance control, there was very little Mayoring to do either. The town Elders were still serving as 'advisers' to the Alliance security/occupation/peacekeeping operation. Which meant someone, sometimes, sent me a wave asking my opinion as to whether we should extend or restrict the curfew by half an hour, or whether we should bother since no one seemed to be paying much attention to it, or something else of equally world shattering proportions. I'd been rendered more or less superfluous to the colony.

The folks over in the Destiny compound were still keeping on their "We're independent!" face, for what it was worth. They were independent because their presence didn't disturb the situation too much, even if some of their business was affecting the colony's coin. The deals that kept the colony fed and in medicine were still in place, and the mines were doing OK, so the loss of a bit of coin didn't hurt all that much.

I suppose I could spend more time on the surface. I'd been spending more time on the Orbital even before the Alliance made their presence felt. Since Martial Law, I've barely been to the surface except to talk to some of the Elders and assure them I haven't abandoned them.

I wouldn't, of course. Appearances aside, I was still keeping my hand in. It was just that so few people out here on the Rim actually knew what it was I did. Another kindness. Given the sentiment most folk had out here about the Alliance, it was probably for the best that they didn't know what I'd actually done during my time in service.

With luck, none of them ever would. I'd built a reputation out here on the Rim. Earned the trust and respect of the other folk that called Hale's Moon home. Who I'd been before didn't matter now so much, and I think most of the folk I knew would agree.

Grand opening

I'm not entirely sure how they managed to acquire the installation, or from whom, but I have to say they did a nice job with it. Though, to be honest, I'd have thought the Companion's Guild, or whoever's actually behind the place, would have wanted a location a bit closer to the main trade lanes. Hale's Moon is anything but. Though I suppose if you wanted to take a surplus block-sized grav lifter and put it under a medium sized apartment block, there were worse places to do it.

Who was I kidding? If you had one of those things you'd be using it to build a floating estate on a world that could actually appreciate such a thing. Out here on the Rim, it was just technological overkill. A platform that would leave the locals scratching their heads wondering why such a thing would be here, of all places.

Not that it wasn't the spiffiest place on, or just over, Hale's Moon. It traveled, albeit slowly, over a section of our Outback regions. Technically, it was subject to the Colonial Government. But, being more vehicle than homestead, it fell under a different set of governing parameters. Unless they drove it within, say, fifty clicks of the colony proper, the Alliance force would probably leave them alone.

Probably.

There was no guarantee that they'd leave the installation alone, though, given their recent stance on 'corporate assets' and the simple fact that the 'anonymous donor' must have had considerable resources, it stood to reason that they would try not to annoy the benefactor. A soldier never knew when some politician would take offense to the job they were paid to do, so there were times you trod with care.

Working in our favor, it looked like Owl would be taking over as the place's on-site manager. She wasn't a Companion. Or a whore. She was a spook. Or had been, when we'd worked together in days gone by. It had been a complicated relationship. Sometimes at odds. Sometimes working towards common ends. Rarely on a simple assignment.

I think she holds her memories of those Ops more fondly than I do. I was a different person then. The Ice Queen. I'd done the operations with a kind of clinical detachment, not really involved in the emotional flow of the people around me. In some ways, it had been a blessing. The detachment meant I didn't have any personal involvement with the lives I was tangling with, or the outcomes of the Op. I went in. Did the job. Left. Move on to the next assignment, wherever it might be. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

We'd come out of it something like friends. Not exactly close, but we'd established a professional relationship that worked for us. It still did. Her taking on Management of the roving Companion Hotel would put her right in the middle of an Intel rich environment and would give me a known asset in a valuable position. I would have to make it worth her while, but that went without saying. We were spooks. We knew how the game was played.

Lily'd assembled a rather lavish shindig for the floating hotel's grand opening and, to be very honest, I was proud of her. While I hadn't been entirely comfortable in the party environment, it had been a bright spot to take my mind off the political situation on the ground. And there were some good people to mix and mingle with. Even saw Reese in finery, and Krenshar put on "the good skin." So to speak.

There are some high hopes for the place.

I hope they come to fruition.

Home to tradition
Companions float in the sky
Arid rocks below

Introductions

She's roughly my age, several inches taller, proportionately heavier, and rather pretty. Dark red hair, green eyes. Her name is Bethany Lionheart. She's the Liaison Officer the Alliance has sent to be the conduit between what remains of our colonial government and her handlers in High Command and the Diplomatic Corps. She's radiating a cheerful confidence born from having the might of the United Alliance of Planets at her back.

She's come to my new office on the orbital to explain to me how things are going to be, and that I shouldn't worry at all about the transition. The Alliance is just here until things calm down enough for them to give us our colony back. She lies, and she's good at it, but may not even realize that her statement is a lie. If you believe something is true, even when it is not, are you a liar when tell someone what you believe?

She's a diplomat. A former soldier. Made it to full Lieutenant as a navigator on a patrol frigate before taking a liaison position between the Defense Department and the Corps Diplomatique. Now, part of the corps, she thinks we're alone and that she has the upper hand in this conversation.

She is wrong. On both counts.

I am almost never alone. The Frame behind my desk looks like a century old antique. Most people think it's the best we could scrounge up to run or enhancements to the local Navtrak arrays, but looks can be deceiving. Inside that obsolete looking shell is the heart of a current generation university SuperFrame. It has considerably more processing power than the patrol frigate that brought her here, and a friend of mine sometimes calls it home. His name is Blue. He's watching me, as I watch her.

I'm sure she's been briefed on what to expect here, but that briefing inevitably left out some important information. It had to. There are facts the Diplomats just don't have. Facts I feel no obligation to reveal to this woman just yet. She's doing me the courtesy of not treating me like some Rim world yamazaru. She no doubt knows I was in the service and that it is no coincidence that my family name is the same as that on the station. Those facts are basic. Matters of public record. She also no doubt knows that Blue Sun's installation on Hale's Moon's surface is the personal headquarters of one of Blue Sun's top executives, and that there are a broad range of rumors about the personal and professional relationships between us. I suspect she is smart enough to discount the rumors.

I'm cordial with her. There's no reason not to be. The Alliance is loathe to interfere with the corporate assets on Hale's Moon, there's too many repercussions if they do. The risks outweigh the gains and there are some risks they're unwilling to take. The colonists are a different matter, much easier to bully, but there is a balance. They know that. It's why the sent a Diplomat.

I listen to her explanation, answer her few questions, and ask a few carefully crafted questions of my own. A practiced diplomat, she reveals little and I don't probe deeply. Social Engineering is not my forte, so I will leave my deeper questions for other times and other channels.

Satisfied she's handled the pleasantries and introductions appropriately, she departs, taking a small shuttle to the waiting Abraham Sinkov and leaving me in peace. I am sure that within the hour, she'll have filed a report with her superiors explaining that she's made the formal introductions but isn't convinced she'll get our full cooperation.

I'll intercept it later.

Right now, I have other things to attend to.

The one wherein politics gets reshaped in the name of expediency

I'd received a number of waves during my fast burn across the Black from Londinium. Most of them were from concerned citizens who wanted to hear it from me directly, that the colony would be OK. I told them what Genni had told them. As long as Colonel Silvermane was in charge of the unit patrolling our little slice of Heaven, the Alliance would act civil. Maybe not always so nice, but at least civil. We don't give them cause to get violent, and they'll act righteous.

At least I expected them to. Of course, I had a different view of the Alliance military than most Rimworld colonists did. I also had a different relationship with Colonel Silvermane than did other folk. I'd worked hard to establish a civil relationship with her after the fiasco of Loyalist influence on the Sun Tzu.

The problem was, she was subject to orders from a chain of command that still had a measurable Hardliner influence. Worse, a little checking found that she was already being considered for a promotion to Brigadier General, which would almost certainly mean her being moved up from Regimental Command to Brigade level, and away from the 1st Marine Raiders.

Couldn't fault her for it when it came to pass. Good soldier. Deserved it. But it would leave us in the position of dealing with a new Commanding Officer for the 1st. Even if they left Lieutenant Xeltentat in charge of the platoon on the Sinkov, there was no guarantee his new CO wouldn't change their standing orders. The only real hope we had was to have the Martial Law situation resolved before anything changed in the Alliance's local structure.

Resolving the Martial law situation though, was looking problematic. Things were still reasonably calm. No one had been shot yet. At least that I'd been told about, but the wave from the Colonel didn't bode well.

""Mayor Kawanishi? I've got some official news. This is being recorded." she started out, the formal tone alone enough to tell me what was coming next.

"Go ahead, Colonel."

"Per instruction from Sector Command, and under the auspices of the Colonial Charter Board, the Hale's Moon Colonial Government is being suspended until further notice. Until order is restored to the satisfaction of Alliance Authorities, the existing government will serve in an advisory capacity through a Liaison Officer. All government functions will be in the hands of the Alliance. Your cooperation is appreciated."

"I understand, Colonel. I'm assuming the transition will be complete before I make it home?" I kept my voice calm, though I'd been prepared for such a contingency. There'd been situations in the past where local government had been suspended, though usually because there was some sort of active insurgency on the colony. That wasn't the case here, but I couldn't ask.

Yet.

"That is the plan, Madam Mayor. Thank you for your cooperation." She paused a moment, looking away from the iris, then the 'recording' light and 'open channel' warnings went off, switching us to a secure link.

"I'm sorry, Seana. This came down from several steps above my pay grade." She looked genuinely upset by the situation. Our recent meetings hadn't made us friends, but they'd established a different level of working relationship.

"I'm not entirely surprised, Corrine. Given the history out here, I'm actually a little surprised no one made a grab for us earlier. Situation's still status quo for the Orbital?"

"Affirmative. Corporate assets are being treated with kid gloves. Blue Sun and Kawanishi Heavy Industries have enough influence that High Command is reluctant to disrupt operations out here. Though Blue Sun's facilities are on the surface, so they'll probably feel more scrutiny. "

I paused, then nodded. Even the Hardliners were reluctant to offend the corporate powerhouses for fear of repercussions. Hell, for all we knew at this point, this could be coming down from pressure from one of Blue Sun's internal factions. Not everyone there was happy with x0x0 in an executive position.

"Thanks for keeping me in the loop. Can you send your liaison officer by the orbital? I'll have my secretary move my kit out of the office and up to the station."

The Colonel acknowledged and signed off, leaving me with a mildly disturbed feeling deep in the Black. Genni already had instructions on how to deal with our systems if something like this ever happened, and I expected a wave from her within minutes of the Town Elders being told the news.

Still, it wasn't all bad. They hadn't decided to issue arrest warrants for the entire local government, something that had also happened in the past. But given the documented levels of cooperation, it would have been hard to pull off without raising some eyebrows. Even if Hale's Moon was a bump on the butt of the 'Verse, a couple of major corporations had interests in the colony and they'd raise a stink in Parliament even if no one there had even heard of our little slice of heaven.

For the time being, I was officially out of a job. Would be a great excuse for a vacation. Unfortunately, being out of one job meant I would have to do some serious work on the other.

Someone would be displeased by where this was going.

I would make sure of that.

A funny thing happened on the way to Londinium

I would say that things were never supposed to get this complicated, but then I would be lieing. I'm in Intel. Things are supposed to be this complicated. It was the nature of our business. I could have retired and driven a desk at KHI headquarters on Ariel, which would have been a different kind of stress but a good deal less complicated. A decision I was comfortable, if sometimes frustrated, with.

It would have been nice to spend some actual time relaxing on Persephone, or Ariel. As it was, the time I got to spend with Friends, Family, and Mate, was all too brief. The situation developing on Hale's Moon meant I barely had time to meet with my contacts and the General before I'd be burning my way back out to Kalidasa.

If nothing else though, I did get to enjoy relating my encounters on Persephone to Sabrina over the course of dinner. She was more upset that she hadn't been there to participate in the ass whuping than she was that I'd put myself in harm's way. Again. But that was the nature of our relationship. Neither of us was especially interested in playing things safe.

My meetings with contacts on Persephone went surprisingly smoothly, as did my face to face meeting with General Taggart. Bright spots in a trip overwhelmed by a series of unfortunate events on Hale's.

As a spook, I'd never been primarily a 'Liveware' specialist. I was more likely to beat information out of a contact than talk it out of them, which was why I'd been a tactical and technical asset rather than a Soft. Taggart'd called me in to his office to give me a better idea of what he expected of my role, kind of defining the line between my doing things myself and calling in dedicated field assets to do the head busting for me. Somehow, I suppose, he figured that a face to face would be better than a secure bridge.

Maybe it was. But the timing could have been better. Not that I could blame him for what happened. It's not like he knew my daughter was going to set a building on fire, or a rock was going to hit the colony. The Martial Law thing he was aware of, but it wasn't in his purview, or mine, to interfere.

The Orbital was a different matter. Since the agreement had been between the Town Elders and KHI, things could change under the Martial Law situation. As an independent commercial facility, the Alliance would leave it pretty much alone. They'd dock as usual, do their usual inspections, and refuel and resupply as normal. They just wouldn't be able to enforce martial law because, technically, the installation wasn't actually owned by the colony. There was just a financial agreement.

That would work to my favor. I'd already set up the communications I needed to move my office up there. If things got too sticky on the surface, I could simply move. It would make my work easier in any case.

But that was all something to deal with during my flight back home.

At full burn.

Letters from home

Eavesdown Docks were a bustle of activity. Not really surprising, considering the breadth of docking bays, landing pads, shanties, markets, and everything else that made up the sprawling facility. Technically, Eavesdown was a minor port in the grand scheme of Persephone's commercial shipping activities. But that technicality belied the fact that there were more people living and working in this port-that-was-a-city than lived on the surface of most Border and Rim colonies.

I'd left messages for a number of my friends based here, including Imrhien and Jai, though I hadn't gotten an acknowledgement back from either of them as yet. Considering how busy both were with their own endeavors, I wasn't worrying about it. If I caught up with them, great. If not, there would be other opportunities.

While I'd reached the general vicinity of the area of both old friends and my primary contact, my timing appeared to be somewhat off. So, with a few hours to kill, and relax after dealing with a couple of local manuke, I settled in to try what locally passed for coffee and catch up on a few of the waves that had come in.

I'd talked to Genni Foxtrot on the way in about how to deal with the aftermath of the fire and the rock strike in town. She'd gotten good at her job, so I had faith in her ability to handle it. Most of the locals were used to her handling the colony's administrative duties and speaking in my stead when the need arose. But dealing with the Alliance was a different animal entirely.

Things had gotten out of hand in my absence. The Sheriff's department was completely overwhelmed, and the Militia was too busy helping deal with the damage to do a lot of policing on their own. While long term colonists wouldn't even consider stealing from each other, as their survival was too intertwined, some of the newer arrivals didn't have that same sense of community. The colony had grown a lot since I'd taken office and some of that growth had gotten unhealthy.

But Martial Law?

Not good. Silvermane had at least brought relief supplies when she'd come down with a contingent from the IAV Abraham Sinkov, and done us the kindness of assigning Lieutenant Xeltentat and his platoon as the main force. But I knew how this worked. The Sinkov was on rotation. There'd be times some other Frigate or patrol boat would be darkening our skies, and we knew full well that not all of the Platoon leaders were quite so civil when it came to dealing with colonists.

I'd get a wave off to Colonel Silvermane and find out what her plans were. She was a good soldier and took her job seriously, but it was also a big job and dealing with a mess on my little slice of heaven was probably a bit of an annoyance.

Having troops on the surface simplified my position in Intel, but radically complicated my job as Mayor of the colony and de-facto governor of Hale's Moon.

Just what I needed.

Could the timing have been worse?