Hannibal had no rational cause to feel guilty, his mind tried to insist, as he stood in Maggie's shower and washed himself quickly. The time he'd just spent in Maggie's bed hadn't delayed them from going after Face. They still had to wait for Calvin's data to process. No reason for guilt.

Keep telling yourself that, Colonel.

He rinsed away the soap and turned the shower off, then stepped out and found a towel to dry off.

Of course, he could have spent this time with BA and Murdock coming up with a plan of attack for the base. She'd been so insistent though. Was he made of stone? If anyone would understand that, Face would. Yeah, Hannibal thought, sure. So you'll be telling him all about this after you rescue him, will you?

That made him shudder as he thought again about what he'd told the fake version of Face about walking Maggie home after dinner what seemed like months ago now. No, he thought, the case won't arise, because I'm not discussing my private life with anyone ever again.

And she had wanted it, he felt sure. Needed it. Hannibal found it hard to reconcile that with the way she'd pretty much given him the bum's rush earlier on, but saw no sense in complaining about it. Women could change their minds. Women were famous for changing their minds. Best to do what she wanted now, before she changed it again.

So he refused to feel guilty. Turned the emotion away, like a club doorman turning away a guy whose face he just didn't like. Try to sneak in and there'd be trouble.

Dressed now, he put on his shoulder holster, placed his pistol in it and walked back into the bedroom. Finding that empty, he walked on into the living room, fastening his watch as he went in. Maggie was in there, packing her doctor's bag. Like him, she was dressed again, including her jacket.

"Hey. Going somewhere?" Hannibal asked.

"I just had a boosted message come through," she said. "One of those babies I mentioned the other night is coming early. I have to head out to make sure mom and baby are okay."

Hannibal nodded. "Think you'll be gone long? There's that council meeting."

"Hard to say. You know how it is with babies."

"Babies? Yeah sure. I know all about babies," Hannibal said and grinned as she looked at him, surprised. "They're small and cute and they make more noise than something that size has any business being able to make."

He hoped she'd laugh, but she only smiled. Still that wasn't nothing. And it wasn't nothing when she came over and stepped into his arms.

"John, thanks, just... thanks. I think I will miss the meeting. Can you tell Caithlin and the others just... I'm sorry."

"Sure."

"And if... if you start your attack before I come back, then be careful. All of you."

"I'm always careful," he said, which he knew constituted a lie. A huge, room filling, wall to wall lie, but what the hell? He always came back anyway, careful or not.

Standing on her tiptoes, she kissed him again. Then she moved out of his arms and picked up her bag.

"You can let yourself out? Please, have some lunch, feel free to help yourself." She pointed at a door. "The kitchen is in there." She went to the front door and turned to look back at him once.

"Goodbye, John."

She left and Hannibal frowned. Her goodbye sounded rather final. Did she think he was going to get himself killed in the attack? Just like the war, he guessed, she'd seen too many friends go out to fight and never come back. You went through that enough times, then you learned to say goodbye every time someone so much as went out to the store to buy milk.

He sighed and found his jacket, slipped it on. Maggie had said he could help himself to lunch, but he didn't feel comfortable with the idea of hanging around her house without her around. That felt as if he'd be intruding on her territory. Even going through her kitchen cupboards would feel wrong, despite the invitation. Not 'rifling her underwear drawer' wrong, but close.

Making sure the door closed and locked behind him, he left Maggie's house and headed back to the Sheriff's office.

-o-O-o-

In the office, it seemed Joy's interrogation had ended and she was back in her cell, drinking coffee and looking rather smug. Leto sat on the bunk in the other cell, looking sulky

"Any news from Murdock about the data?" Hannibal asked Amy, who sat opposite the sheriff at his desk. BA stood guard by the cells.

"Murdock called in and said they may have some preliminary results soon," Amy said. Hannibal nodded. Amy studied him and Hannibal could tell she was wondering where he'd been for the last couple of hours. Well he wasn't telling anyone.

"So," Hannibal changed the subject, glancing back at the cells. "Did Joy confess then?"

"Oh yes." Amy grinned. "Didn't she, Sheriff?"

Ted, looking glum, his chin resting in his hand, snorted.

"Unfortunately I think the statute of limitations on 'stealing fire from the gods' has expired. And the murder of 'Cock Robin' is outside of my jurisdiction."

Hannibal had to smile at that, but then became serious again.

"Okay," he said, "BA, Amy, I want you with me. We have to start making plans. As soon as we have that location I want to be ready to go."

"Colonel," Ted said, "You're welcome to use my facilities."

"Sorry, Sheriff. No offence, but we've not fingered the mole yet. There's no guarantee we will either. For all I know it's you."

"I am not a mole!" Ted protested at once, standing up.

"Sheriff," Hannibal raised a hand. "I don't think it's you, but right now I'm not sure I trust my own judgement." He glanced back at Leto. "So I'm not risking being wrong. The team will make the plans and we'll tell you what we need. Agreed?"

Ted still looked annoyed, but he nodded.

"Agreed."

"Come on," Hannibal said to Amy and BA. "We'll find Murdock, chase off Mr Calvin and get our heads together."

-o-O-o-

Murdock and Calvin sat in the Galileo Operations Centre, a small facility usually unmanned. Russ Lambert had given them the access they needed and hung around for a while as the mainframe started crunching the data. Eventually he got bored and left.

"Kids." Murdock had muttered.

"They always have something less important to do," Calvin had agreed, nodding.

As lunchtime approached, Murdock reported their progress to Amy and turned back to Calvin, who was drawing on some old printed out reports. Murdock gave the paper a nervous glance, but smiled at the sight of sketches of him. He became quite self-conscious then, wanting to ask, "Is this my good side?"

"You wait till you meet Face," Murdock said. "I've listened to artists rave about his bone structure for hours at time. And the smile! You'll love it."

Calvin looked up at Murdock. "I look forward to meeting him."

"Yeah," Murdock said. He tapped nervously on the table and drank some coffee, his sleepless night catching up on him. "Yeah. Sure it'll be soon."

"Your Colonel seems confident that Face is alive."

"Yeah. Yeah, well Hannibal's always confident. About everything." He picked up a sheet of paper, folded it into a paper plane and launched it across the room. It glided for a while, briefly held aloft by the breeze from an air-conditioning grate in the floor, before nose-diving into a dusty corner.

"It makes sense that Kyle would keep him alive as a hostage," Calvin said.

Murdock snorted. "Makes sense to us maybe, but who knows how someone like Kyle thinks?"

"He thinks like us." Calvin bent over the paper and started drawing again.

"Speak for yourself." Murdock scowled at him. "Kyle's a monster."

"He's a man, Mr Murdock, nothing more."

"I don't think I implied that he's 'more'." Murdock's words, the harsh tone, made Calvin look up again into Murdock's scowling face. He seemed about to speak, but a buzz from the console shut him up, made them both turn to it.

"Is it finished? Calvin asked.

"Not quite." Murdock tapped a few buttons. "Still at least an hour to do the final analysis and triangulate a location for the base. But we have some results to look at here. It's isolated the different ships passing near your scanners. Want to take a look?"

"Of course." Calvin put aside the pen and paper and pulled his chair up to the console. Murdock brought up the ship information on screen. It showed transponder identification codes, a ship's unique identity, and the dates and times Calvin's scanners picked up those codes from passing vessels.

"This one looks like Kyle's ship, passing back and forth," Murdock said. He frowned at it. "Came close that day." He pointed at a date.

"Yes," Calvin said, calmly. "That's when they tried to get in the first time."

"What?" Murdock stared at him. "They tried to hit you before? Why didn't you say?"

Calvin shrugged. "No point. They fired on my blast doors a few times, saw they couldn't get through and went away again."

Murdock shook his head. "Hey, let's make a deal. In the future let's try something called 'the full story'?"

Calvin just shrugged again and Murdock turned back to the screen.

"A few others on the edge of scanner range, just passing, no real patterns. That's Matthew's bus..." He checked the ID codes of others against the mainframe, saw most were miners and other residents, straying into Calvin's scanner range as they travelled about. There were two others though, more regular visitors.

"That one's Joy's," Murdock said. He glanced at the dates. "Every couple of weeks. She bring you some, um, home cooking, eh?" He grinned at the scowl Calvin gave him. "And that's Maggie's." He pointed at the other that showed up regularly on the scanners. Like Joy's, it appeared every couple of weeks.

"Maggie's?"

"Doc Sullivan. So that covers when she visits you. Let's hope we can get enough information about the movements of Kyle's ship to extrapolate where the base is. And then we --" He stopped. "What?" Calvin wore a baffled look on his face.

"Mr Murdock, I don't know what you mean." He ran a finger down the column of the dates and times Maggie's ship appeared on his scanner. "Why do you think the doctor visited me on all these dates?"

"Maggie said, she told us, she visits you regularly, every couple of weeks and..." He trailed off.

"Murdock," Calvin said, turning to stare at him. "Doctor Sullivan hasn't visited me for over two years."