Chapter 1: The Journey's End

"Hey John, how have you been? Long time no see! It's been what, five or six months now since we last commed."

"I'm as good as ever, Glenn. Business is finally starting to pick up again, the wife's cooking is making me fatter than ever, and the kids are doing well in school. No complaints here. How about you?"

"I'm doing well, though business isn't quite good enough that I can stretch this call out for very long. I'm calling with work, I'm afraid. I've got a girl here who wants on as a crew member for the long haul run I've got going way out there on the edge of the rim. She claims she worked for you for a while, name of Marina, little slip of a girl."

Glenn's voice sighed over the comm. "Yeah, I remember her. I had her doing maintenance on passenger flights during the refugee boom right after the war. Good girl, hard worker, competent, responsible. Quiet though, kind of held herself apart from the rest of the crew. She's good people, John, but I have to warn you; she's a drifter. I did a little checking myself before bringing her on, and she's never stuck around on a job for more than a few months at a time. Always did her work, always gave notice, but always left."

John paused thoughtfully for a few moments. "Interesting. Still, I find myself running short of folks I trust enough to make the deep runs."

Glenn's laugh broke the momentarily somber mood. "That's 'cause the only people that will work for a pirate like you are even worse pirates!"

"Oh ho, a pirate, am I? I wouldn't say I'm undercutting you nearly so much as you're overcharging folks blind."

"Accusations! Well there's only one way to settle that, and it's over drinks. When are you and the missus next going to be in my little corner of the galaxy? Why, I'd say those kids of yours must be all grown up now, and . . ."

Marina Serla cut her way carefully through the spaceport crowd, one hand over the duffel bag on her shoulder and the other clamped protectively around the ident card and credits in her pocket. The spaceport was busy, humming with the flow of life and business of a major port.

At a glance the scene wouldn't seem out of place on one of the bigger mid-rim worlds. She eyed the crowds as she headed towards her terminal. Their clothes were clean and their luggage sturdy: middle class, little danger. Hard won experience had shown Marina how to look a little deeper. The spaceport itself was big, lit up by an impressive number of lights, commercials, and vehicles, but there were cracks, if you knew where to look.

The travelers' clothes were well worn, and their luggage bore the little marks and stains of hard use. Dust and trash littered the corners of the hallways and waiting rooms. For every impressive sweeping vista and fully droid-run ticket counter there was another closed down, a tarp thrown up that couldn't quite hide its cracked displays and deactivated droids. Yes, this was one of the biggest ports in the outer rim, but it was built in a hurry, and it had been hard times this far out for years now. You never knew how someone would react to hard times, and the further they fell, the more unpredictable the results.

She kept her hands tight on her possessions.

She followed the signs for another ten minutes until she reached the 'worker's only' entrance, where a bored Iridonian teenager waved her through the turnstile with barely a glance up from his comic book. The human woman at the control panel was a little more alert, however, so she plopped her duffel bag and credits through the slide to the scanner and handed over her ident card. The woman gave a scrutinizing gaze as she read over the information. Marina Serla, age 28, graduate of Brilkhem University on Corellia. Her eyes raised a little at the registration for the blaster pistol in her duffel that showed up clear as day on the scanner, but that may have been because her computer system didn't have access to the Corellian weapon licensing database to check if it was legitimate or not. Which was, of course, the reason she'd chosen to be Marina out of the dozen or so fake passports carefully secured on her person when she arrived in this little backwater corner of the galaxy. That, and Marina had always been her favorite; more often then not she thought of herself as Marina before any other name.

The checkpoint worker wavered for a second, then sighed and nodded her through. It wasn't worth the huge paperwork fiasco or the weeks of delays for either of them, and she knew it. Marina smiled back, but there was sadness in it. She'd counted on it, but seeing the Republic fall short always hurt, just a little, somewhere deep in side.

The back areas of the spaceport had given up all pretense at being well maintained. Trash filled waste bins, then covered them, then got built up around them, and just offhand she could see a dozen ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the awkward setup they had going down here. But, just like everyone else, she didn't plan on staying here long enough to make it worth the effort.

There were no signs, so Marina asked passing uniformed mechanics and dock workers busy loading and unloading the big passenger liners for directions, which led her further and further from the bustling main terminals. After another few minutes of climbing over fuel hookups and dodging hulking loading droids that didn't even register her presence she passed the invisible line that marked the transition from the corporate lines to the independent shipowners. The freighters were smaller here, the gloss long since worn off and replaced with the deep dents and carbon scores of durasteel that had seen hard wear.

At last she found it, the Journey's End. It was an old KT-400, the outer low-slung cargo modules making the raised nose look like it was straining to take flight. Some designer somewhere had obviously liked the idea, because the front end of the stub nose hooked down like a hawk's beak. Serviceable, sturdy, and there were just enough military versions left over from the war that pirates would think twice about swooping in on one. In short, it was perfect for the outer system runs she'd been hired on to help with.

But before work there was one last thing to do.

Marina pulled the duffel bag off her shoulder and set it on the grimy floor. What was one more grease stain? She unzipped it quickly and pulled out some wadded up fabric. Then she hesitated. It was such a little thing, really, but it meant so much. The cloth was of high quality, and she took a moment to run her hand over the familiar smooth texture of the tan and brown robes, to breathe in their familiar smell. She'd held onto them for so long, but it was time. Yes, it was time to let go.

Without a trace of her momentary hesitation Marina wadded the cloth tighter than before and threw it into one of the industrial sized dumpsters. She zipped up her duffel, tossed it over her shoulder, and marched up the boarding ramp to start her first day on the job.

…

The Journey's End, it turned out, was as much a threat as it was a name. The KT-400's were tough, but they could only take so much, and this one was just about on its last legs. Marina supposed she should have suspected as much, what with the boss hiring a relative unknown like herself as a mechanic on a trip this far out. She'd mostly ignored the brief introduction to the other crew members, as she always did, tossed her bag onto her tiny bunk, and buried herself in the guts of the ship as quickly as she could.

It was better that way.

And, indeed, it was a good thing she had. An hour later she lay flat on her back on a creeper she'd bastardized from an ironing board and some universal wheel joints she'd requisitioned from the crew quarters. From that angle she had a great view of the tattered, overheated wreck of the inertial compensator. It was a miracle it was still working at all, and that was in positively good shape compared to the artificial gravity generator. After her quick inspection she headed up to the cockpit and initiated the time-honored dance between mechanic and owner, requesting a myriad of parts she wished she could have, having half of them rejected, and eventually hammering out a solid compromise that they were equally unhappy about. The parts arrived, they took on the last of the dried food and condensed oxygen, lifted the boarding ramp, and after a cursory conversation with the control tower, lifted off.

There is something to be said for the rumble of the main engines so deep you felt it in your chest, for the hum of atmosphere against the hull, for the wonder as the planet fell away and unmasked billions of stars in a display so vivid it drew even lifelong spacers to look out the viewports. Marina didn't look. Instead she was orchestrating a performance all of her own. Where others felt the roar of the engines, she heard their rattling as they strained against the constraints of physics, she felt their strain against the bolts of the engine housings, and watched the coolant do battle with the heat readings in a dance that held all their lives in the balance. Where the others watched the stars break through the clutter of atmosphere, Marina watched the glitter of warning lights spark into life on the artificial gravity generator and scrambled in, tightening lose couplings, lubricating, and showering the complex part with enough love and attention to convince it to keep working just a little while longer.

At length the gravity generator was satisfied and settled in. Marina stepped back and cracked her back with a relieved sigh. They had about an hour to line up with the main hyper lane in outer orbit and wait their turn to make the jump to hyperspace. She eased down into a corner between the hyperdrive and the port-side engine and felt the compartment around her. It wasn't anything mystical, despite what some of her previous ship-mates might claim, but rather she put herself into an empty state. She simply blanked her mind and took everything in.

She listened to the ticking of the engine, the whirring of the hydraulics, the creaks and groans of the engine chassis. She watched the readings on the various components, traced the paths of wires and cables through endless tangles. She felt the vibrations of the engines themselves. Yes, there was a lot of work to be done here.

Marina rose from her crouch, gave a sad glance at the limited tool set, and grabbed a hydrospanner.