The long flight home

My Matagi, Wave Equation, could make the run from Hale's Moon, well, Dragon's Egg, now, to Ariel in around two days.  That was assuming average orbital distances and running at maximum efficient cruise.  I could do it faster, but the extra fuel burn wasn't really worth it.  Depending on how you set your course and whether you punched in a mid-trip burn, you could do it in a 'Fly in less then a week.

We weren't setting any records for speed on this trip.

Simon had plotted several stops along with way, ostensibly to pick up fresh food and supplies and give Meddie a chance to stretch her legs and see the surface on a few of the worlds along the route.   The real reason was to give us more time together to get to actually know each other.  Near as I could tell, his mind had been long made up.  He wouldn't have braved talking to Grandfather if he wasn't serious.  Thing was, I still had misgivings.

When I'd fallen for Caitlin I was, admittedly, young and naive and a bit sexually repressed.  Ok.  More than a bit.  She'd opened my eyes, so to speak, to things I'd barely imagined.  When she was killed by an Indie raid the emotional trauma was etched into my being.  It left me cold.  Ice Queen hadn't been a bad code for me back then.  I'd enjoyed physical comfort, but love wasn't something I thought I would, or would even want to, find.

Imrhien changed that.  I'd fallen in love with her, and couldn't have her, and it hurt.  The kind of pain the old Master's would say was good.  If you can feel pain, you know you're alive.  And somehow, through her, Sabrina and I found each other.  We'd come from wildly different worlds but we'd been a good couple.  Good living together.  Good in bed.  Supportive.

While it lasted.

We'd seen the breakup coming long before it happened, but it hadn't made it any easier.  Maybe it had been a mistake in the first place.  Our worlds had been very, very, far apart.  Not just our backgrounds, but even our professional and political lives.  Empathizing with the Independent cause didn't make me a Browncoat.  Having friends high in the movement, even today, didn't change the fact that during the War I'd been what I was.  "Special Asset: Tactical."  There was a lot of blood on my hands and most of it wasn't Reaver.

Simon was . . . different.  I'd had male lovers over the years.  That wasn't the issue.  Never considered marrying one, but that wasn't the issue either.  The issue was I wasn't in love with him.  I liked him, sure.  But I hadn't felt that spark.  Either of them, actually.  The one that made you smile when you remembered who you were going home to, and the other one you felt when you remembered what you'd be doing after you got home.

Not that I couldn't.  Simon was attractive enough, and a good man since we'd been travelling together.  Fact was, we knew each other's backgrounds and that was a blessing of sorts.  And a curse.  With another spook, you never quite knew whether what you perceived in their behavior was real or part of a cover.  That we'd talked about being a couple to the outside world to further our covers didn't help.  That he hadn't taken me to bed didn't help either.  Or maybe it did, on some level.  Unless he was Sly.  Not that I thought he was, but it would explain him not taking me to bed.

Just wasn't sure this flight would be enough time to fall in love with someone.  Not that I actually needed to be in love with him to go through with a wedding.  Wouldn't even be breaking with tradition, seeing how a lot of weddings were still arranged and made as much out of obligation as anything else.  Some of them even turned into real, loving, successful marriages.  Just never thought I'd be in a position to have to make that sort of a choice.

Point of decision
Marry for love or honor
Perhaps not at all?

The one wherin the social situation becomes rather more complicated

I was never quite sure whether Simon actually fancied me, or if his wanting to initiate a relationship was part of a very elaborate cover we could both use to professional advantage.  He'd said as much once, early on, before he built the farmhouse and I moved in after KHI redeployed the orbital.  Our relationship could be just for show, since it would make things a bit easier for our respective covers if we appeared hitched.  But he'd also said he loved me.  But now?  Now I wasn't sure what to think.

After being on an Op for way too long.  After dropping so far off the grid that even his network didn't know where he was, and I knew, since I'd jacked it.  After an orphan girl shows up on my doorstep at Lily's suggestion.  After all that, he comes back.  Not just back, but back with news I'm not entirely sure I'm comfortable with.

I knew Sabrina and I would end up with an actual divorce.  Wasn't really wanting it, but it was what it was.  She'd left.  I'd let her.  Not an acrimonious ending, but an ending nonetheless.  I'd held on to the marriage on the off chance she'd come back.  And, if she didn't, I could still say I was married as a way to keep potential suitors at bay.  Not that I had any.  'Cept Simon.  Wasn't like I was alone every night either.  A Registered Companion can work wonders for a mood, as can a friend with benefits.  Was part of the understanding.  Someone keeping the bed warm when the one you love is half way across the 34 Tauri system doesn't mean you don't love them.  Just means you need a little warmth.

What I hadn't expected was Simon to come back to Dragon's Egg with papers from a court way to high to be dealing with divorce settlements, declaring it done and over.  All I had to do was confirm and sign.  More then that, he had a fancy engagement ring with him and said he'd spoken to my folks to get their approval before he proposed for real.  How he'd pulled that off, I wasn't sure.  Even if he'd slipped through my net, Mother would have sent me a wave to tell me he'd come.  If not, Father certainly would have.  Just the thrill of a man taking interest in me would be enough for that.  And Grandfather?  Simon had connections at least as far up the food chain as mine, which would get him an audience with Grandfather.  But him not sending a wave?

Something didn't seem quite right in the whole situation.  But I'd figure that out.  While I hadn't agreed to marry him, at least not yet, I'd at least agreed to make the flight back to Ariel to see my folks.  Bit of a vacation.  Sort of.  Officially, I had Leave coming and, somehow, Simon'd gotten Tag to authorize me taking an extended leave.  Thing was, my other role wasn't really something I could step away from for any length of time.  The network was still too tenuous, too fragile, for me to just leave it be.  Yes, I had competent people in place.  But that didn't mean my rapidly budding network could run itself.

There would be a lot to work out.  Wasn't sure I was ready to get hitched.  Not so soon after ending it with 'Brina.  Not even sure I want to be married to a man, though it'd make Father happy.  Much as I love him, chances of me giving him the grandson he wants is pretty slim.  Not sure I'm willing to marry someone who hasn't taken me to bed.  Tradition or not, there's something to be said for knowing what you're getting in to.  Or what's getting in to you, as the case may be.  A lot of traditions in the 'Verse, and mucha s he's said he doesn't want to change me I can't see getting hitched before you know if you're compatible in bed.  Wouldn't be such an issue if 'no sex afore weddin'' didn't usually come with 'you're expected to not be beddin' anyone else.'  May not be an issue, but it was something 'Brina and I'd worked out.  Not going to be there to keep the bed warm, it's ok to have someone keep the bed warm.  Just so long as you didn't get anything you didn't intend to keep, and it was just a beddin.

We'd have time on the flight though.  Why he'd picked an old 'Fly for the trip I didn't know, but we'd have time to sort things out.

Maybe.

Orphan

I've never been big on failure.  An overdeveloped drive towards success has been ingrained into me since childhood.  I can blame some of it on my family clinging to parts of traditional Japanese culture that go back centuries before the Exodus, and some of it on my own deep seated desire to live up to my Grandfather's expectations.  An individual failure was acceptable if, and only if, one was to face that failure and overcome it.  Failure was an option under some circumstances.  Giving up was not.

As a Soldier and Spook I had been successful.  At least within the definitions of success for the roles I filled.  I'd even managed to succeed in managing a small mining colony as their Mayor.  Again, within the bounds set by the role.   Conditions on Hale's Moon had improved while I was their Mayor, even if everyone hadn't been happy with all of my decisions.  That was to be expected too.  It was hard to please everyone, but the job hadn't been to keep everyone happy, but to try and keep them alive and maybe bring a little prosperity to an arid little rock in the middle of nowhere.

The only part of my life I look at and see failures is in personal relationships.  Losing Caitlin, longer ago than I care to remember now, was the first.  I'd had to create a new small alter here on Dragon's Egg at the anniversary since the one on Hale's was, well, gone.  I'd tried infrequently since and thought I'd finally found it with Sabrina.  But that didn't work either.  Even Simon had gone off on a mission and then just dropped off the face of the 'Verse.

All that had worked was the girls.  Sort of.  My adopted daughters were a whole different sort of relationship.  But had that even worked?  Lily and AuroraBlue were my girls, but ultimately I didn't seem to have much sway in their lives.  An anchor, maybe.  One person in the whole 'Verse who didn't want to study them or use them for their own agenda.  I just wanted them to be happy and safe and give them some genuine love, and I'm not sure I succeeded on anything but the love part.

Though, now, a new factor was being inserted into the equation.

She goes by Medusa, though I don't rightly know why she'd have that particular mythical namesake.  An Orphan who'd somehow gotten caught up with the Companion's Guild, Svetlana and her crew, and then crossed paths with Lily.  She was desperate for a real home and a mother figure to provide guidance and Lily thought I'd be just the one.

I knew there were reasons Svetlana couldn't take her on as an actual 'mother' figure, but there was a real question as to whether I would be suitable either.  There were a lot of factors in my life that were . . . hidden.  Not just my work.  But some of my relationships.  None of them appropriate for a youngun, not that I couldn't keep them hidden as I had.  There would just be this undercurrent of secrecy that she would pick up on and either probe or just learn to deal with.

But, for now, I'd play the Foster Mother role the 'Verse has dropped in my lap.  She may stay on a while.  She may go back with Svetlana and her crew, or she may go off with Genni Foxtrot and her brood.  Regardless,  I'd take her in for now.  There was a finite possibility that she was a plant to get through to my network, but I was already working back down that angle.  Taken at face value, she was a youngun in need.  Before Hale's I'd have shrugged and moved on.  Not my issue.  Now, for better or worse, I'd do what I could.

Thinking in the long term

My original degree was in applied technology, though, oddly, my Master's Thesis project was an Expert System I called Nora.  Nora grew out of the relatively primitive Expert System I'd been toying with all though my college experience.  It was the only way I'd been able to keep up with everything at school and still do my ROT and competitive martial arts.  I'd never asked x0x0, but I suspect Blue Man had a similar evolution.  Only, where Nora was a reasonably well tuned Expert System that was well suited to my specific needs, Blue had grown to be one of the most advanced, if not the most advanced, AIs in the known 'Verse.

My recent "change of mission," such as it was, had me thinking more about technologies that wouldn't just make the job easier, but would make it possible at all.  I'd put a fair bit of time recently into re-tuning Nora to deal with the sheer flood of data that was coming in.  IAV Saules Silencieuse was massively capable, but even the dedicated ELINT boat lacked the capacity to process everything we were getting.  I'd been working on that issue, adding capacity for both data warehousing and data processing, but it was clear that simply collecting every tidbit of raw data in the Verse wasn't the answer.  After all, it only took half an hour randomly parsing Cortex feeds to realize that the vast majority of it was der'mo in its purest form.

There were several approaches I could take to getting the interesting data out of the raw flood.  The first, improving my parsing capability, I was already working on.  Expert systems backed by some skilled analysts could handle a good chunk of that.  But that was ultimately a scaling game.  There was always a bigger pipe.  The more the network grew, the more raw data we had coming in and it wasn't a linear scale.  The second option, which I was also working on, was improved HumInt.  Human Intelligence.  Boots on the ground.  Classic Spycraft.  The problem with having field agents was the logistics of having field agents.  We were growing, but we were still too small an operation to have many field assets.  While I could, and did, tap into a lot of the existing sources for Intel, they weren't specific to my needs.  Though, in truth, my "needs" were still somewhat open ended.  After all.  An information broker could never tell exactly what tidbit of information was going to be important at some point.

And therein lay the rub.  There was simply too much information to gather it all, which meant focusing in on the important bits more efficiently than just throwing it all at an AI or Expert System and expecting them to sort it all out.  Which ultimately lead to the next option.  The most exotic, least predictable, least practical, and hardest to implement.  Finding a way to get a Reader in the loop.  Someone who could look past the raw information to the truth of the problem.

I'd worked with Readers.  They were rare, precious, temperamental, and often only marginally stable.  I'd seen more than one project under Alliance control that sought to manipulate a Reader to make them more suitable for covert, overt, or other, operations.  And, in each case, the project had failed, usually with disastrous consequences.  The hurdles with any sort of wetware project were substantial.  Not just from technical perspectives, but from moral and ethical ones as well.  Those last two factors were oft overlooked by the kind of folks who usually started those sorts of endeavors.

The difficulties didn't make the idea any less valid though.  If a Reader really could see through to the Truth of a situation, then it made logical sense to find a way to employ their abilities.  But I could not, and would not, lose site of that carefully chosen word.  Employ.  Not use.  A Reader couldn't be treated like a normal Asset.  They couldn't be handled like a resource that was expendable if needed, just weighing the cost benefit ratios between using them or losing them.

I couldn't deny there was a lot of blood on my hands from my years as a Spook, but I would do what I could to try and not add to it.  This whole direction, ultimately, was an effort to get a little less blood on the collective hands of the 'Verse.  If I actually pursued this beyond the thought experiment stage, I would make absolutely sure that any Readers I worked with were treated like people.  They were people.  Not Assets.

For now, it was all just a thought experiment.  It would be a long term project if it turned out to be doable at all.  But, then, all of this was long term.

Sifting through data
Too much for a human mind
Can anyone cope?

Dilemma

On Earth that Was, during the second stage of the 20th century's "Great World Conflict," cryptography and communications took huge leaps forward.  One of the consequences of those leaps, especially where decryption was concerned, were occasions where leaders would have to ignore specific intel so as not to alert their enemies that their codes had been broken.  The end result: civilian deaths because they weren't warned there were bombers on the way to paste the city they lived in.

It was a terrible position to be in and there have been numerous instances since of a leader deciding to sacrifice a target so as not to compromise an intelligence asset.  It's not an easy decision to make, for various reasons.  The ethical concerns are obvious.  Unless you're a bit of a sociopath, sacrificing a civilian target is never a decision to take lightly.  Even if you are a sociopath, there's the issue of people eventually finding out that you were willing to let them die so as not to compromise your intel sources.

I'd been following my adopted daughter's antics and activities for some time.  I'd be doing it even if I wasn't a spook.  I'm her mother after all, and she has a unique ability to find all sorts of very special trouble.  Follow her had led me to keeping track of events on Al Raquis and events involving the Myrmidon Order - a quasi religious cross between a Monastic order and a conventional PMC ^*.

Lily had become quite impressed with one of the order and he'd welcomed her to come train with them and learn their ways.  Somehow, he'd been some sort of impulse for K2, which, I admit, I didn't pretend to understand.  Be that as it was, I'd reluctantly told Lily that it was OK and tried to get it across to Krakken, the Myrmidon, that I expected him to treat my little girl with the respect and care she deserved.

Not unexpectedly, that didn't happen.

She'd come back home, vowing never to go back to the Myrmidon.  Which I was good with.  What I wasn't entirely good with was the information she brought back with her.  During my time monitoring, I'd found it more than a little difficult to get good Intel out of the Order and on the Order.  What Lily brought with her was intel that they were planning to, at some time in the near future, invade Al Raquis.

That was entirely unexpected information, and, to be sure, it didn't make a lot of sense.  My first instinct, after resisting the urge to laugh at the thought of a PMC, even a well organized and equipped one, attacking a well established colony, was to pass the information on the some local contacts on Al Raquis so the local military could be prepared for what was coming.  Only Lily didn't want me to do it.

It left me in an awkward position.  On several levels I wanted to test my network and see whether I could actually use it to make a difference.  I hadn't chosen to become an information broker to be rich.  I already had all the monetary resources I could need and then some.  No.  I'd done it because, ultimately, it was how I thought I could do the most good for the most people.

On a lot of levels I know the idea was flawed.  It was very difficult to know, in my heart, what really was the best use for my information.  What really was best for the thirty six plus billion people living in the 34 Tauri system?

Regardless, Lily's asked me not to intervene.  Why I didn't know.  But I agreed.  For better or worse, I wouldn't warn the military on Al Raquis that an attack might be imminent.  There were other things I could, and would, do if the situation escalated.  But, for now, at my little girl's behest, I would let things happen as they would.

For better or worse
Warnings remain unspoken
My conscience heavy


* Author's note:  I know the Myrmidon Order doesn't see themselves that way in the Dune campaign and other locations where they exist.  However, this blog is strictly from the perspective of a player in the Firefly 'Verse.  Hence, the adaptation to fit within the Canon of firefly. Here's a good starting point.

Signal, ever so faint

I got a wave today from out of the blue.  Well, out of the Black, really.  While I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it means, I am quite sure of the source.  AuroraBlue.  The Tiny Dragon.  My littlest girl.  The message, such as it was, was little more than a series of faint clicks, but the pattern was familiar.  Not unlike Lily's, though the signature was quite distinctly not Lily's.

Tiny Dragon didn't reach out to me often and I had to wonder what prompted the message.  Was she in trouble of some kind on Al Raquis?  Possible, but my information network there hadn't reported anything overly concerning.  Not that it couldn't get past me.  My information nets, while growing tighter, were still growing and I was still learning to properly parse the huge amount of data that was coming in.

Did she know about Sabrina?  The message I'd received?  That I was, again, the Lonesome Ninja?  Entirely possible.  A large part of her genetics had been carefully engineered for a specific purpose.  While the exact purpose was still, annoyingly, unknown, it wouldn't surprise me to find that a touch of the Reader gene was in there somewhere.  Genes, really.  Plus structural changes and who, really, knew what else.  It was possible she knew at an intuitive level that I was alone again and was reaching out to give some small token of comfort.  It was also entirely possible that, assuming 'Brina's departure was the reason, she knew by entirely mundane means.  More likely, really, given her intimate association with the Blue Man AI.

For all I knew, the message could be nothing more than "The weather is beautiful, wish you were here."  But somehow that seemed a little too mundane.  The fact that she's sent an audible message was significant in of itself.

The logical step from here was to check with my contacts on Al Raquis directly then, if they had nothing, go there myself to see how Tiny Dragon was doing.  While I was following the developments with Lily and K2 and AuroraBlue, I'd been very hands off of late.  Perhaps it was time to change that, though my interventions in the past never seemed to do much.  Of course, it was hard to see any effect my actions would have in their situations.  I was too close to it in time and space.

I also wasn't prescient.

Though . . . was anyone?

I'd give it another day or so to check with my local contacts and see if I could figure out why AuroraBlue had contacted me.  If not, or if she didn't contact me again herself, I'd go to her.  Even if it turned out to be nothing more than a sympathy call, it would be good to see her again.

Tiny Dragon calls
A faint voice, unexpected
Welcome distraction

The one wherein a Dragon cries

On some level I am not surprised.  When Sabrina took Elsoph up on his offer to come play in an R&D lab of her own, I'd had a gut feeling that she'd get wrapped up in being able to pursue her technical dreams.  We'd stayed in touch, seeing each other, or speaking over a Cortex link, as often as we could, but on some level I knew the distance was a problem.

I hadn't realized how deeply she'd feel the loss of Hale's Moon, but I should have.  She'd lost a home on Blackburne when the Reavers had overrun the downport.  Even though she was living with me on Hale's by then, she'd felt the loss as had all the others who'd called that place home.  The move to Dragon's Egg was even less comfortable for her than it was for me.  Probably why she accepted the position back on the Orbital, then gone with it when Corporate made the decision to move it.  We'd both called the Orbital home for a time, living on the boat docked in the lower hangar.

Now, she'd chosen to walk away.  Not that I really blamed her.  I even understood why she'd left me a Haiku to say good bye rather than having the a talk that would have been more painful for both of us.

Time has changed us much
I no longer have a home
Into the sunset

Part of me wanted to track her down and have the talk we should have had, while the rest of me knew and understood her reasoning.  I had to remember that old saying: "If you love someone set them free.  If they love you too, they will return."  The thing was the variations in how that old saying ended.  The classical "If they don't return, it was not meant to be."  Or the more irreverent "If they do not return, hunt them down and kill them."

Most people who knew me would expect me to follow the latter interpretation of that saying, but I wouldn't.  I loved 'Brina.  I always will.  But if our marriage wasn't meant to be, I'm willing to let go of it.  I won't be happy to let go of it.  But I am willing.

I just wonder if I'll be able to stay on Dragon's Egg myself.  Lily and AuroraBlue have both been very mobile, but spending far more time on Al Raquis than on Dragon's Egg - a world I have extensive contacts on, but don't feel comfortable on myself.  Simon's been away for weeks without even a SitRep to let me know his mission status, and the colony doesn't actually need me for anything.  I have the house, of course, but other than Haley it's empty.

But that means Haley is the only one who can see the Dragon cry.

Inevitable. 
Time and distance came between.
A hard driven wedge


I will not cast blame
Saying goodbye to my love
Even Dragons cry