The roads must roll (Magdalena Lethe)

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Magdalena Lethe"]

"Well stang it to heck, sorry to hear that." I hadn't drunk enough to get really nauseous, but a serious puke was starting to sound good. Something off about the local lum, maybe. "GUIDE's unique. Some things run their course. Some things just..."

Lost my train of thought around then. A gritty wind kicked up and I hunkered down in the collar of my coat.

"Reminds of me'o when I folded up Baobab Astrography. Not enough folks looking to buy maps, and I couldn't scale it. You hear content scales, but not a ton, not when it's a ship at a time, a person contact at a time and-"

My stomach was seriously rumbling now.

"But your brand's got value. Dream does too. Might just need to tweak it this'n'that."

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

"Well ... thanks. I appreciate the support. Unfortunately tweaking isn't without its cost and we're -" she blinked, watching the man as he hunkered against the wind. Magda didn't have to shield her face, but she turned away from the flying debris and braced against the wind.

Was it just her or was he looking a little ... green?

"I didn't realize Baobab was yours as well," her voice strengthened against the howl of the gale, how did she miss that? As Jorus Merrill's biggest fan she absolutely should have known this. "Do you think we could get inside somewhere and keep chatting?"

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Magdalena Lethe"]

"Yeah, I got a soberup stim and a ship full of quiet spots. Quiet-ish." I hurked hard but kept it down like a mensch. "Ramp's thattaway."

We headed thattaway. The Gossamer's a mile long and she's got a lot of ramps. The nearest was maybe two hundred yards,

"Yeah, Baobab's mine. Was. Used to be a heck of a front for smuggling Underground folks and trainin'em up. Better than all these upstarts - Body Astro Navigant, Void Heirophants - everyone wants a few discount usses on payroll, like instinctive nav is something you can mass-produce."

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

"But that's absurd," Magda didn't know of these other companies he mentioned, but now she was intrigued, "you can't mass-produce Force Users of remarkable skill anymore than you can mass-produce geniuses," she paused mid-stride, narrowly missing a hunk of flying debris in the wind by a nose, "well, ok, artificial intelligence notwithstanding. It's not the same thing. You know what I mean. There's no substitute for raw talent."

The ramp was getting closer, the wind was growing stronger.

"Are there others as good at is as you from Baobab?"

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Magdalena Lethe"]

"Nah. Nah, not really. Not that got their training there. I'm not much for that kind of teaching. Lotta folks have worked with'em, played a role, gone undercover with'em or at least with the Underground in the same general whatever - my daughter Mara before she lost the Force, a couple Starchasers, a couple Jasts, Vaud Miir-"

Yup, couldn't hold it. "'Scuse me," I said, and puked downwind politely.

"Anyways, no. Nobody like me. They all get hung up on being able to 'do things-'" I started making air quotes. "-and 'use the Force' and 'develop powers' and 'not specialize themselves into early graves.'" That was a lot of air quotes.

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

She didn't know a Mara. Didn't know any Starchasers or Jasts. Definitely didn't know a Miir-

Magda averted her gaze, politely.

Mostly to keep from testing her own gag reflex for the first time in her environmental suit, but also to be polite.

A blink as he turned back. That was a lot of air quotes.

"I've never been able to do things," she replied simply, if not without some measured disappointment, "my sister can. She's very talented. The only thing I've ever been able to do better than her was navigate and fly. She never knew where she was going and I've never gotten lost. Except for once when I-" Magda stopped herself, bracing against a particularly dodgy gust of wind, "-not important. Are you OK?"

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Magdalena Lethe"]

"I'm a lifetime alcoholic in the middle of a relapse. See, I charged in and got around twelve thousand good people killed this weekend. Had to be done, but like feth am I staying sober. Man has limits."

I regretted the overshare but whatever. She'd already seen the inside of my stomach, after all. I headed up the corrugated-steel ramp into the Gossamer's tertiary cargo bays.

"Anyways, ignore me. So you're in the same boat, eh. Navigator who can't do the other stuff. No rock-throwing, saber-swinging, lightning-farting crap for you, Captain Lethe?"

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

Following up the thataway ramp, she had no response for the overshare. What did you really say to something like that?

I'm sorry? No, don't apologize for other people's problems, Magda.

Still. She decided to be grateful for the sudden lack of wind and abundance of quiet.

"I once hit my brother Gabriel square in the face with a model ship from about 40 yards out. My mother thought I did it with the Force, turns out there was just a good cross-breeze." She shrugged, "He still has a dent in his forehead from it, whatever that counts for. But I've never thrown rocks, I can't use a lightsaber, and I definitely have never...farted lightning."

"I'm just ... this."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

"Hey. No 'just' about it." I shook a finger at her and slumped into a nook made of crates. A stim pricked my leg and the whirlwind in my stomach dialed down to gale force. "Look, this ain't stuff I talk about much, or even let myself think, but yeah. What're they next to you, huh? Ooh, I'm a big scary Jedi who can chuck boulders. Schutta, please. You an'me can pave new roads for whole civilizations, link up worlds to the 'verse, build hyperlanes worth trillions, plop fleets where they shouldn't be able to get. We may not have the short-range pyrotechnic ooga-booga, but we operate on a scale that's orders of magnitude bigger. Take a decent amount of pride in that. You can do crap that most Grandmasters and Dark Lords can't even imagine. Petty little morons the lot of'em. No scope. No vision. No perspective. Wasting their lives and burning up millions more building empires that'll be gone in six months. Tell it to you straight, whatever you build could last forever."

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

Magda could feel the color filling her cheeks at Jorus' slew of rock-hopper jargon.

Mr. Merrill, she could hear her mother's voice in her head, there's no need for name calling or such vulgarity.

Here she thought Izzy was bad at times, Magda was starting to wonder if he censored himself when he was around her. She anxiously drummed her fingertips at her front before clasping her hands together.

"That's, uhm, well," mmm, nope, no words. There it was, a bonafide, honest-to-goodnes Jorus Merrill pep-talk and it was everything she never imagined it would be. An anxious smile formed behind her mask, "I guess I never thought of it that way. Things lasting forever..."

"I've never built a hyperlane before, just ... charted ones that have gone undocumented like the Crusader's Way. Building one sounds like fun. I wish I could have been there to help you when you made the Mara Corridor - talk about lasting forever. What an amazing legacy to leave behind."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Magdalena Lethe"]

"Got a knack for selling yourself short. Documenting the Crusaders' Way made a heck of a difference to some. Trade volume from Ceto to Kal'Shebbol's gone way up, and you know what one of Ceto's top exports is these days? Kolto. That's lives saved right there. Ain't no better metric."

My gut quieted down and my brain got clearer as the stim took hold. Thank the Dragons: I sure didn't want to puke in front of a guest again. And there's an embarrassed shame that sinks in deep when I let my demons go on display.

Worst part was, I wanted to go looking for another can.

"You'd've been a kid when we made the Corridor, wouldn't ya?" I indicated my face to indicate her helmet. "Under there you're, what, early thirties at most? Alna'n'I laid the foundations close to twenty years back. Don't fall in the trap of getting wistful for the past. Future's what matters. I don't think much about the things I've built, just keep asking myself what's next. You could build your own Mara Corridor if you wanted. Just need the right spot and the right sticktoitivity."

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

"Really?"

Hadn't considered that, either. The effects of charting the Crusader's Way and publishing it to the galaxy. Magda frowned, wondering where her mind had gone that she hadn't even bothered to think about the side effects of posting what she thought amounted to an otherwise useless backwater hyperlane.

"I had no idea. I didn't think it would actually get used." From a historical standpoint it had been fascinating to dig up all that information on Moross. She still wanted one of those books...

How old was she when he made the corridor? The math made her head spin and she decided not to touch that particular bucket of k'lor'slug truths. Magda gave a non-committal nod to his age guestimate. Close enough.

"Maybe. I don't know. GUIDE just ... became so big so fast. I should have listened to my brother. I should have kept it small, but we never would have accomplished what we needed to if we stayed small. Now it's just this ... beast that consumes funds and hurts people. I don't know how to fix it."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Magdalena Lethe"]

"You sound like me and my wife when Silk went big. Gorram were we ever rich. I'm talking Arceneau rich, but it ate our lives and we weren't happy, not a bit.

"So we set up a trust for when Mara grew up, not that it brought her much but grief when she got it. And that chunk, that was all that we held on to.

"The rest of it, the company, even the lane - we just passed it on and walked away. Went dirt poor back to basics, got salvaging again, reconnected with what we loved about the work and ourselves. Now, in a lot of ways I'm a quitter, but I'll still pass on some advice I heard from a priest on Tash-Taral. You ever wanna know how the gods feel about money, take a look at who they give it to."

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

"It was never about the money...it was always about helping people. Making the galaxy a little bit safer for everyone without taking away from the adventure. Giving people a purpose that struggled to find it elsewhere. It was about building a galactic community."

Magda sighed, shoulders slumping somewhat, "There's a lot of people out there that don't believe in such things, I'm learning. It's unfortunate that it should rely on the ones that the gods gave the money to. GUIDE got started on the faith of a few very generous backers, but it's been four years and the galaxy has changed so much that it's hard to keep up."

"I had to get away from it. I was drowning. People have gotten hurt and died. I ... " she picked at her suit, "my life will likely never be the same. When do you know enough is enough, Jorus? How do you know when to stop?"

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Magdalena Lethe"]

"When my wife says so." I wanted another drink, but enough was enough. "You got someone you can count on to have a sense of proportion? Buoy you up when you're down, reel you in when you're off the rails, poke you to do a little better, and not stand for your crap? If you don't, get one.

"Because yeah. Anyone with a conscience who's been responsible for deaths, you're gonna need real support or one of two things'll happen. Either you'll give up and never amount to nothing again, or you'll get hardened and cold and who knows what. I don't much see you as at risk for the second one, but..."

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

Magda frowned.

"My brother Gabriel was like that, but he didn't want the same things as I did. He walked away from GUIDE about two years ago and I don't really know where he is now. I don't have anybody else that I'm really close to...certainly not a significant other. I've been too busy for anything like that, always moving to the next target or destination. Kind of lost sight of the stars for the galaxy."

Hard to realize you don't have a close friend when you're constantly surrounded by people working towards the same end. Sure she had some crew that would fulfill one or two roles each, but none of them she felt particularly close to. Except for maybe Izzy - but that was complicated and confusing all on its own, which was why she came out here without him.

Magda cast a look about, listening to the sound of people working around them and felt the itch to be useful, helpful.

"Is there something I could do to help you ... with your ship?"

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Magdalena Lethe"]

I'd pushed a little farther into the personal than I'd meant to. Maybe she wasn't the only one looking for connection.I thought about turning her over to Dingo Darr or Shenna'vala, my right hands and engineers. Seemed a little cold to go straight there from 'my brother left and I have nobody.'

"Yeah, we could totally find you stuff to do. We didn't get torn up as bad as some, but...yeah. Ship this big has a couple hundred miles of hallway. We'll be finding busted crap for years. What're your tech skills like? Any certifications, specialties?"

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

"Not as useful as my brother's to be honest," she shrugged, "He was always the greaseball at home, constantly tearing things apart and putting them back together again. I mostly played the role of his assistant and handed him tools... but my father did teach me how to weld and I like to think I'm pretty good at it. He said it was because of the OCD I inherited from my mother."

Magda gestured with her hands, "Everything perfectly just so."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Magdalena Lethe"]

"Medium skill, knack for exact...lemme chew on that a minute. We'll find you something, and we'll be grateful for the help. Or, let's see..." I pulled out a comlink. "Hey, Dingo?"

"Yeah, Cap'n?" said my Krevaaki chief engineer, probably half a klick to stern.

"Got someone here wants to lend a hand. Support skills, good for precise stuff."

"Trust'em?"

"Yup."

"Could swap out the inertial dampener coils on deck one. It's all modular, can't really screw it up unless you get sloppy."

I raised an eyebrow at Lethe.

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

After a moment of consideration she shrugged, "I'll see what I can do, how hard can it be?"

It could be harder than it sounded, but she was trying to maintain her already flimsy confidence. Besides, the last thing she wanted to do was make a fool of herself on Jorus Merrill's ship. Not that seeing him drunk-puke held a candle to it, but she would like not to damage it any more than it already was.

Magda moved to follow his lead, falling in stride next to him, "I guess I owe Isaiah an apology ... and maybe a drink. He's been trying to tell me you were alive ever since the ATC Bazaar but I didn't believe him."