Saga Up in Flames (Diary Challenge 2013) - Wedge, Booster, Mirax. Completed 12/28

Very real to life. I had to chuckle at his declining Karrde's offer I can just imagine his personal sense of loss would be stronger at such low points

 

nice Talon Karrde cameo! I'm looking forward to seeing Wedge drag himself up by his bootstraps ( or not - not everybody wins who plays the game ).

 

Everyone, thank you very much for reading!

Kahara: I agree, starting out in the "real world" during that time (especially for someone relatively young and mostly on their own) was probably quite a challenge. Plus I wonder how the galaxy could have turned out differently if Wedge had started working for Karrde back then, LOL.

Earlybird: Wedge definitely has a lot on his plate, and unfortunately maintenance is one of those things that never seems to go away.

Nyota's Heart: True, negative emotions seem to amplify other negative emotions and make things even harder and make low points even lower.

Rau_Fang: He's certainly trying. How well it turns out remains to be seen.

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Entry 14

I found out that hauling livestock requires more licenses and permits that I don’t have and frankly can’t afford. Solstice is too slow for courier work– the couple people I had inquire about courier services were no longer interested as soon as I told them the expected arrival time at the destination, which was based solely on Solstice’s hyperdrive speed (or lack thereof, apparently). I even tried getting some passengers as a private chartered flight, thinking I could add some seats inside Solstice easily enough, but for the price I would have to charge just for fuel and consumables, people want to take something a little more... luxurious than an old YT-700.

Being flexible is all well and good until you run out of ideas.

I’ve had a few standard jobs here and there, but it’s not enough. I lose money every day I sit here with no cargo to haul. I’ve done everything I can think of to stop the bleeding, including moving Solstice to the cheapest docking port available on Gus Treta and eating meals that look like some sort of leftover military rations from the Clone Wars, but I’m a laser’s edge away from missing a loan payment on Solstice for the first time. That prospect scares me. I don’t want to lose my ship. I can’t.

I contacted Booster again for help finding work. First he told me to move Solstice to a cheaper spaceport dirtside on Corellia, but I’d already considered that. After I explained that most of my outgoing transport jobs come from people on Gus Treta and I had almost no existing customer base on Corellia, he grudgingly agreed it might be best in the short-term to stay put. I had to promise to put some serious focused effort into finding a cheaper place on Corellia and establishing a customer base there so I can survive a move as soon as possible, though, so I’ve been researching options at a few different spaceports all morning.

The good news was that Booster said he knew someone who would have some work for me. He’s going to talk to the guy, give him my contact information and let him know I’m available immediately. I really hope this works out. I really need it to.

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Wedge is feeling the crisis too
Nice post

 

Ooh, mega crunch time I hope this contact pans out

 

Earlybird and Nyota's Heart: Yeah, Wedge is feeling just a teensy bit of pressure lately, LOL.

Update tag for Rau_Fang

Thank you for reading, everyone! This update's a bit longer than the others have been.

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Entry 15

The second I get back, I’m going to find out what the hell Booster was thinking.

At first it wasn’t that bad. I– wait, I’m not even sure if I should write this down. I suppose I’ll encrypt it. It’s not like they won’t find out if they really want to anyway.

So yeah, at first it wasn’t that bad, though it wasn’t that great either. Not at all what I was expecting when Booster said he found me some work. Here I am, trying to keep my business legal, and what does he do? He sets me up with a smuggling job.

Earlier he said that I have to be flexible. Well, I’ve been trying, but there’s "flexible" and then there’s this. Being too flexible lets you get tied up in knots.

And this wasn’t just any smuggling job. This was a smuggling job for some rebels. No, no, nothing illegal at all in this equation. Just like that, I saw my nice little business’s reputation go up in flames, and my family’s reputation too.

Okay, so maybe that was a little melodramatic. After all, it’s not like my parents had any qualms about being good friends with Booster despite his smuggling activities, but it felt different when the illegal activities were going to be on the Antilles side directly. I don’t think Mom and Dad would have wanted that.

I came really close to turning down the job right then and there, but the financial pressure got the better of me. I really needed the credits, and they were offering good money.

The man who hired me was called Mr. Contos, though I know that’s not his real name. I don’t know what his real one is, and I told myself I didn’t need to since Booster was acting as his reference and I trusted Booster. Mr. Contos had some crates of havod alloy sheets as the cover ("legitimate") cargo and some smaller boxes that he needed to have brought in secretly. He didn’t tell me what was in them, and I didn’t ask. The hard part was that it was all going to an Imperial planet, so any sniff of smuggling or rebel activity would bring them down on me rather unpleasantly.

Solstice doesn’t have smuggling compartments, but I’d learned enough tricks from flying with Booster on some of his runs that it wasn’t a problem to get the smaller boxes onboard and hidden from both sight and scanners. Then Mr. Contos gave me my destination, the recipient’s contact information, and half my payment, and I was off.

I couldn’t relax the entire flight to Gendrah-Narvin. It’s way over in the Inner Rim so it was a long one. Every minute Solstice was on autopilot I was pacing. I convinced myself five times to cancel the job and turn around, and five times I talked myself into keeping the job and continuing on. It wasn’t a coincidence that each of those latter five times occurred when I got to the cockpit and saw what I’d be giving up by going back and not getting that money. I can’t lose my ship. In a lot of ways, it’s all I’ve got.

When I reached the Gendrah-Narvin system, I hit the point of no return and strangely felt a bit better now that any other options were off the table and the path ahead was set. Besides, this was the only time I was going to take an illegal job– I’m not going to be making a habit of this. I got into orbit and went through customs. I was a little nervous, but I’d been through similar things on a couple of Booster’s runs so I knew what not to say just as much as what to say, and I got through without an issue.

While heading down through atmo I commed the recipient. She wanted me to come to a different spaceport and deliver to a different address than the ones I’d originally been given by Mr. Contos. I was a bit annoyed at that but I diverted like she asked. I don’t know if it was a security measure or if her plans changed or what.

It was a dumpy, dirty little spaceport in what looked to be a dumpy, dirty little city. I rented a landspeeder and loaded the phony cargo in. It took me a bit to find some discreet hiding places in the landspeeder for the smuggled boxes, but I did and I headed out.

When I arrived at the new address, the recipient was waiting for me. She was a Gotal, tall with matted brown fur and hair, and she introduced herself as Kellarkai. I’m sure that wasn’t her real name either. A man was there too, but he stayed quiet and I didn’t catch his name. He seemed wary of me. I was glad I had my blaster.

I tried to keep contact minimal– the less I know about stuff like this, the better– but Kellarkai kept trying to talk with me as I showed her the phony cargo and then pulled out one of the smuggled boxes. I know enough about Gotals to guess that she was their sentient lie detector, trying to figure out if they could trust me or not. I must have passed because she eventually seemed satisfied that I had the correct cargo and told me not to unload it there. I had to drive the two of them to another building where it could be unloaded. Okay, sure, I just wanted this job to be over with and the credits in my hand.

From the passenger seat Kellarkai gave me real-time directions through town. We doubled back a few times and took some needless turns, but I didn’t let on. Finally we got to the back of a plain-looking building and pulled into the garage. The door closed, the lights came on, and four people were standing around us and lowering blasters that had been pointed at us. Kellarkai and Quiet Guy got out like it was no big deal, and three of the others came to talk to them for a minute. I stayed put. Then Kellarkai motioned me out and asked me to unload all the cargo in the corner.

So I did. One of the four new people, a woman maybe ten years older than me, came to help me unload everything. Bubbly’s a good wood for her. She managed to squeeze more friendliness into those fifteen minutes than most people do in a week. She was so happy to get whatever was in the smuggled boxes and kept making chit-chat while we worked, like how was my flight coming in, how long have I been flying, where I’m from, what my favorite food was so she could recommend a good local place before I headed out, things like that. Bubbly. And packing a well-worn blaster twice the size of my own.

When we were finished Kellarkai inspected the contents of all the smuggled boxes. She was hard to read but she seemed pleased, and she and the bubbly woman brought me to an office inside the building for my other half of the payment and the customs fees. Kellarkai paid me, and she asked if I would be interested in bringing in cargo for them again. I declined, but she didn’t seem like she believed me and started trying to convince me of the good the rebel group was doing and how they needed all the help they could get. That’s when the commotion started.

I’m still not exactly sure what happened. There was a huge bang from near the front of the building and then lots of shouting and running bootfalls and weapons fire. Even Kellarkai hardly had time to react before the door to the office was kicked open and I found myself staring down the muzzle of an Imperial stormtrooper’s E-11 blaster rifle.

The bubbly woman shoved me to the ground right before the stormtrooper fired. Next thing I know she’s falling down dead right beside me.

There was a whole lot more blasterfire above me. More out of self-preservation than anything else, I pulled out my blaster pistol, scooted around the desk I was behind, and fired at a second stormtrooper who had just come into the doorway. It looked like Kellarkai killed the first one. My aim was off and his armor absorbed the shot, but it made him stagger. Kellarkai fired and downed him too. Then Kellarkai ran out of the office while yelling at me to stay there. More shooting sounded from other areas.

I don’t know how long it lasted. I had other things on my mind. It was obvious that if the bubbly woman hadn’t intervened, she’d still be alive and I’d be the one lying there dead. Finally I had to turn away from the sight of her blood and mortal blaster wound. I was pretty shaken up and thought I was going to be sick.

After the shooting stopped at last, Kellarkai and a couple others came back to the office to check on me and the bubbly woman. They all were very distraught at her death. I knew that look.

Kellarkai said something about an Imperial raid and asked if I was all right, and for some reason I just snapped. I yelled some things at them like who do they think they are, why do they have to go and get themselves killed when other people still need them, and probably a few other similar tirades. Looking back now I guess I overreacted a bit, and I think I surprised them as much as I surprised myself. Kellarkai started to say something, but I wouldn’t listen. I was too angry at everything and on the verge of losing it so I hurried back to the landspeeder and took off back to the spaceport. I was off the ground as soon as I could get power to Solstice’s engines and clearance from control.

Booster owes me a damn good explanation.

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Sure, Wedge, Sure.

Sounds like Wedge might be projecting a bit? There is some great characterization going on here! Wedge seems to be unraveling his parents selfless act and discovering just why such a sacrifice might be worth it.

Oh man, looking forward to the Wedge and Booster fun times ahead.

 

That's what he thinks now...

Liked seeing Wedge's first encounter with the Rebels, though things went south fast. That he yells at them because "people still need them"... yeah, ouch. Poor kid.

 

Great and riveting update... definitely a plausible intro to the Rebels. A hard one but definitely Wedge has some loss issues - poor thing, hasn't had the chance if nothing else

 

Great action, and it sure will have him think more about rebels and Booster.

 

Thank you for reading, everyone! I appreciate it.

Rau_Fang: Yup, Wedge has some things to sort out in his mind. We'll see the little chat between him and Booster in this post.

Kahara: That's his story and he's sticking to it. I agree, he had a lot to deal with during his first meeting, both on the outside and on the inside.

Nyota's Heart: True, he's having to work out a few things with his losses. It's a slow process, but we know he'll get there.

Earlybird: He'll have a lot of things to think about now.

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Entry 16

Blast, I keep forgetting what a temper Mirax can have.

When I got back I tried to track down Booster. I heard he was on Drall, so I took Solstice and went over there since it’s so close. I wanted to talk to him in person. But when I arrived I found out I’d missed him and he’d recently left on a run, so I sent him a comm message to get in touch with me. I’d already paid the spaceport fees so I stayed on Drall the rest of the day. A little change of scenery did me good.

I’ve kept Solstice and myself synched to Gus Treta’s local clock to make things easier on me, and it was the middle of my personal night when Booster commed me back. I got up and opened the comm. I wasn’t sleeping much anyway, and I really needed to talk to him and hash this out.

When Booster appeared on the holo, I saw Myra was there with him too. They said Polipe was up in Skate’s cockpit.

Booster said he was glad to see me and asked how the job went. Just like that. All casual.

I thought I’d cooled down on the long flight back from Gendrah-Narvin, but apparently I didn’t cool down as much as I’d thought. I immediately demanded to know what he was thinking when he gave me that work. He looked surprised and asked what I meant, as if he didn’t know, so I explained. Loudly. Quite heatedly, too.

I "explained" how the job was horrible and I wished I’d never gone on it. I explained how smuggling wasn’t doing the legality of my business any favors. I explained how working for rebels certainly wasn’t helping either. I explained how I’m already so close to going under that any sort of investigation from the Imperials or CorSec would do me in, both financially and reputation-wise, and I can’t risk giving them anything to wonder about.

That was only my warmup. I was just about to explain in great detail how getting shot at by Imperials and seeing nice people get killed in cold blood centimeters away from me was completely unacceptable, but before I could, Booster had apparently gotten very tired of being yelled at by me and cut me off. He wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise as he "explained" how this was good work, that I’d needed it, that the legality of my business makes it even less likely to ping the Imperials’ awareness so it’s safer for me than other smugglers and I won’t get investigated if I stay smart about things.

When he finally paused the slightest bit, I jumped to refute the first thing I could. He was wrong about this, and I had to make sure he knew that and would stop trying to argue and put this on me, like it was my idea or my fault. I argued that this work wasn’t good and wasn’t the kind that I needed and I couldn’t believe he put me in that position, or that he even thought I should be involved in illegal, deadly work when the job originally came up with his contact. He shot back that they said they needed someone skilled and trustworthy, and he told them that was me.

That’s when Mirax plunged in with all laser cannons blazing. She started in on me about how ungrateful I was being, and how I was the one who had asked for help in the first place, and how Booster had helped me when I really needed it and this was the thanks he got, and what the hell was wrong with me that I was acting this way?

Things went downhill for a while then. Dropping a fully loaded cargo container on my foot would have been more enjoyable and more productive than those next few minutes of arguing with both of them was. It wasn’t until I was completely fed up with their trying to defend against my first, more minor complaints and I managed to blurt out about the shooting that Booster started to pause and listen. I guess I should have started with the worst part first, but the whole "discussion" didn’t go at all the way I’d expected for either side. Both Booster and Myra gave me this "Well, why didn’t you say so?" look when I finally was able to get down to the heart of the problem. The family resemblance was uncanny.

So emotions were still a little high on each side, but at least they heard me out. Booster tried to talk me out of it when I told him I wouldn’t take any more smuggling jobs and no jobs for any rebels– he told me I was tying my own hands at the time I could least afford to do so– but eventually he let me make my own decision and just said to let him know if I change my mind. I know I won’t, though. Not after what happened.

I’m glad all that’s over with and behind me now. The credits I got from that run mean I’ve got a tiny bit of breathing room, but not much. It was just enough to pay all the bills that were due immediately or past due. It’s time to focus on finding my next customer, wherever they are. Maybe I’ll do some advertising on Drall while I’m here.

One thing’s for certain: having two Terriks angry at me is something I never want to experience again.

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I can understand Wedge's anger -- it would be one thing if he'd known about the Rebels ahead of time. Being put in that spot without knowing at first was a nasty shock, especially since he'd tried to avoid trouble.

Communication, Wedge. It's a good thing. I'm glad that he finally got across what the actual problem was, and that Mirax and Booster both understand that a lot better than his concerns about smuggling. They were, after all, trying to help him out in the way they have the most access to, and actually do care for his best interests -- in their own way. I'm sure he wishes they would help out in a way that led to fewer Imperial issues, though...

 

Ooh, well! That was a humdinger! Now each side understands, but I think perhaps they're not as tight or won't be for a while. Wedge is thinking: I'll do my own job searching, next time. He's wanting above-board, or at least, predictable and safe, runs.

 

Wedge wants safe runs but will he get those? he has to stay friends with the Terriks. They might get him out of trouble if that arrises

 

Thank you for reading, everyone!

Kahara: Yeah, the Terriks are good people to Wedge and are honestly trying to help him out. Hopefully Wedge learned a bit about communicating better when his emotions are high.

Nyota's Heart: Yup, getting his own clients is probably looking pretty appealing to Wedge right now.

Earlybird: The Terriks are good friends to have for many reasons, one of which is definitely to help get out of trouble.

Update tag for Rau_Fang

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Entry 17

It turns out that staying on Drall for a day was a good thing. I got to see a Drall Wingrider flying on an ibbot, but that’s not the only reason why it was good.

I got back to sleep after talking to the Terriks, and when I woke up it was local evening. I went out to do some more marketing and wound up in a little spacer cantina near the spaceport. This time buying drinks for the other ship captains paid off. One of them told me about two Drall who needed to hire a small ship, but she couldn’t take the time out of her schedule to do that job. She gave me their contact info, and I bought her another drink as thanks and commed them.

The two Drall were excited to hear from me and arranged a meeting almost right away to talk details. Dahnes and Hecha were scientists and had some crazy, delicate botanical analysis equipment they needed to take to Ithor for an experiment. They didn’t trust shipping it separately while booking a commercial transport for themselves, so they were looking to stay with their equipment the whole way there and back on a charter flight. Of course I told them I’d be happy to fly them. They asked to see the ship, so I gave them a quick tour of Solstice, and they gave me some references when I asked. We signed a contract (pending the reference check, but it came back good), and Dahnes and Hecha said they’d be back in the morning with their equipment, ready to go. I couldn’t understand the Drallish they were speaking to each other when they left, but they sure seemed eager about the trip.

While they were gone I got Solstice ready for the long flight. Refilled all the consumables, refueled, calculated the navigation vectors, and ran a full diagnostic on the repulsorlift to make sure it was good. Hecha and Dahnes had told me all about the tricky part of their flight– ships weren’t allowed to land on the surface of Ithor, so they’d be paying me extra to keep Solstice hovering below treetop level while they opened the side hatch and lowered their experiment out on a cable in midair for the data. Because that would be the perfect time for a repulsor malfunction. But the coils all checked out fine.

I also moved most of my stuff out of my small quarters. Living in the cockpit for a week wouldn’t kill me, and for charter flights like this it seemed better for the customers to have the room. I wish Solstice had more than one living area for times like this.

I was ready when they showed up bright and early the next morning, and we loaded their equipment and luggage and lifted off.

There’s nothing like a cross-galactic voyage cooped up in a small space to really get to know someone. A lot of the time we were in hyperspace so there wasn’t much for me to do enroute, and Dahnes and Hecha took that time to passionately explain to me, in detail, all the workings of their experiment, all their theories, and what they were hoping to learn on Ithor. I followed fine for the first hour but after that I was lost. But they were excited and proud of their work, so I tried to at least sound supportive.

They also told me all about their families. What I didn’t realize at first was that they were cousins, and they weren’t shy about trying to outdo the other with funny stories about the others in their clan. I didn’t get all of the cultural jokes, but Dahnes and Hecha were having fun. I got the feeling these two were the more lighthearted members of their clan and spent lots of time together because of that. They told me about their Duchess, their sisters and brothers, and every other relative who was dating someone or not dating someone or having job problems or raising young or had fur that was going grey prematurely or who said something dumb or anything else that came up.

Once, early on, Hecha asked me something about my father. It caught me by surprise, and after all the ugliness from that smuggling job I admit I was a little shorter with him than I should have been when I said I didn’t want to answer. He apologized and neither of them brought up my family again. But the weird thing was that, as the next couple hours passed and they told me funny stories about their siblings and parents, I kind of wanted to join in. At one point they’d just finished talking about a mutual aunt who was having some crazy dealings with bureaucracy in hiring a new employee where she worked, and before I knew it I was telling them a funny story Mom had told me about when she and Dad had first started the refueling depot– the one where something got mixed up in the paperwork somewhere and the Corellian employment system thought their droid was a flesh-and-blood employee and some clueless bureaucrat dirtside insisted the droid get health and retirement benefits. Dahnes said he was going to retell that story to his aunt.

And I enjoyed telling the story. I think that’s the first time since everything happened that I’ve thought about Mom and Dad and smiled. It didn’t last forever– I started to get sad and miss them again– but it was strange realizing it was possible to be happy again when thinking about them. I ended up telling a couple more stories during the flight, but I was nowhere near the level Dahnes and Hecha were at.

Other than that, the trip to Ithor was uneventful. We docked at one of the floating cities and got the appropriate clearance (apparently Hecha and Dahnes had been working with an Ithorian scientist here and had set everything up well ahead of time). Seeing trees and moss on something purely technological like a floating city is strange. I want to read up on those cities a bit more when I have some time, especially the engineering behind how they made them. Anyway, we got some rest and flew down to the surface the next morning. Ithor is actually a fascinating planet. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much green in one place in my life. The plants and waterfalls were amazing, and I saw some pretty interesting animals too.

Keeping Solstice stationary in midair isn’t that hard of a feat, but keeping her stationary in midair for a couple hours at a time is, especially when it’s windy and there are huge trees mere meters away on each side. But I got it done. Hecha and Dahnes would get a couple hours’ worth of readings on their equipment, I’d fly us back to a floating city for a short break and let them compile their data, and then we’d go back down for a couple more hours. We cycled through this routine a few times, and then repeated it all the next day as well.

At one point they got particularly animated about the data they were receiving. I guess they got something exciting in it. I hope so.

On the evening of the second (and last) day of data-gathering they asked me to fly to a particular floating city, Tafanda Bay, the capital. While they went out and met with their Ithorian colleague, presumably over dinner, I scrounged up some dinner of my own locally (note to self: avoid the ooglata eggs next time) and prepped Solstice for the flight back to Drall. It took me a while to clean the Drall fur out of the environmental filters.

We left the next morning, and we’re on our way back now. Dahnes and Hecha are back in the cargo hold going over their data and chattering to each other in excitement about it. In Drallish. I elected to stay up here in the cockpit, take a little break and write this. Besides, it’s not like I’m missing much– even from the other end of the ship I can still hear them.

This was a good run, and it’s coming with a good payment too. See, I don’t need any jobs with rebels to keep my business afloat. I can make this work on my own terms. It’ll be fine.

...And now I’m curious if Hecha’s niece is going to quit her job and go back to school to study in the same field as her boyfriend. Maybe Hecha and Dahnes will hire me again for a flight and I can find out.

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What a terrifically refreshing run: the clients were congenial & above-board Glad also that Wedge was able to remember his folks, if briefly, with a smile.

 

A nice mission for Wedge. He is getting along without rebels.

 

Hmm, maybe Wedge needs some crew or something (though I suppose he can't afford to hire anyone yet.) The company is good for his state of mind. The scientists seem like they could be good friends, since Wedge is even comfortable enough to remember his family in better times. Hopefully Dahnes and Hecha will have some reason to hire a ship in the future.

 

Nyota's Heart, Earlybird, and Kahara, thank you all for your comments and for reading! I'm a bit short on time now for individual replies, but I do appreciate your comments very much.

Short post today. Plus update tag for Rau_Fang.

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Entry 18

I got the inside of my quarters back to normal on Solstice and cleaned all the fur out. It’s good to be moved back in there.

Since that charter flight I’ve had a job here, a run there, but nothing much and nothing consistent. I’m still focusing mostly on freight hauling, but I’m trying out some more advertising as a charter flight pilot since the flight with Dahnes and Hecha worked out pretty well for me.

The Terriks are here for some maintenance on Skate, so I’ve gotten to see them a bit while I’ve got downtime too. That’s been fun. I fixed Skate’s reaction chamber for them as an apology for my little blowup. Myra got a laugh out of some of the stories I retold about Dahnes’s and Hecha’s family antics, and later today Booster’s going to go over my budget numbers with me to see if he has any ideas on how to help.

But in the meantime, I’m just looking for work. There’s got to be some out there somewhere. Wish I could find it.

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Great, that Wedge and the Terriks have really smoothed things over. Charter flights seem a good idea. That and a few consistent customers.

 

Great to see him busy with the Skate. And looking for work? Rebels?

 

That was a really sweet post about Dahnes and Hecha. They were really fun and nice to have around. I love how they acted as a catalyst for Wedge to cycle through and understand his grief better. If I was less disciplined of writer (or lazy rather) I'd almost want to ask your permission to make them the center of a plot bunny - no pun intended.

Also I'm glad he's back on amiable terms with the Terriks - he's gonna need their help regardless!

 

Nice to see more from Wedge, even if he's having so-so luck. So-so is better than catastrophic. At least he's had the chance to mend fences with the Terriks.

 

Thank you for reading, everyone!

Nyota's Heart: Yeah, things are good between them again. I think at this point, Wedge would love some consistency.

Earlybird: Ship maintenance is a never-ending battle, LOL. We'll find out where his job search is taking him in this update.

Rau_Fang: Dahnes and Hecha were fun to write, and feel free to use them as characters if you'd like. I agree, Wedge was able to start turning a corner with their (inadvertent) help. And it's always good to be on amiable terms with the Terriks, LOL.

Kahara: His luck hasn't been great, but I agree, it's better than really bad luck. And yup, good terms with Booster and Mirax again.

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Entry 19

Mom and Dad always encouraged me to never give up. They told me to work hard because persistence pays off, nothing good ever comes easily, the longer the odds the sweeter the prize. I know that mindset is what allowed them to open and operate the refueling station. I saw them put it into practice quite often.

But they also raised me to think and use my head.

Lately those two philosophies have been in conflict. That stubborn Antilles streak says, "Keep going," but the rational brain says, "This isn’t working and you have to stop."

I’ve long since lost the financial buffer from the smuggling job and the charter flight. Truth is, those never really got me back above water, they only let me tread it for a bit longer, and I was down pretty deep at that point already. Since then I’ve just kept sinking. I’ve looked hard for work, and I’ve even contacted people I’ve hauled freight for previously to see if they needed anything else shipped, but nothing’s come up. The only thing coming in are bills I can’t pay.

I’ve come to the hard conclusion that I’m just too small of an operation with too small of a freighter. People who need to ship something that would fit in Solstice’s hold instead take it to a larger commercial company who tosses their tiny cargo in a corner of one of their massive haulers that’s going roughly the same direction anyway, and they get charged a fraction of the price it would cost me to take it direct on a dedicated flight. As much as the stubborn part of me wants to figure out the business model to make this succeed, the realistic part of me can no longer justify throwing away everything I’ve got left when it’s obvious my best wasn’t good enough.

Making that decision kept me awake for a couple of nights. I’ve tried hard to make this work. I really did. But even Booster couldn’t find a legal way to improve my numbers that I hadn’t already attempted, and he helped me brainstorm for hours.

The obvious solution is to sell Solstice, shut down my business, and go find another job or do something else, like refocus on architecture. But my stubborn side isn’t going to let my rational side have all the victories here– I love my ship and enjoy flying her too much, so I’m going to keep her, sensibilities be damned. Flying so much, traveling so much, experiencing so much with Solstice is the only thing that’s kept me distracted and sane since Mom and Dad died. I don’t think I could handle a monotonous office job right now. However, keeping her means I have to find a way to afford her, so I was back to square one with how to drastically change my business to do that.

It reminded me of another time I was really stuck, when I was building that little droid for that school project years ago. Blast, that thing drove me nuts. I got the basics operational, but then I added on a whole lot of modifications and the next time I turned it on it went crazy and wouldn’t work anymore, not even the basic functions. I spent days trying to fix the modifications with no luck, and I was so frustrated. When I finally got fed up and went to Dad for help getting the droid operational again, he told me I was making it too complicated and to take a deep breath and a step back. Then he said something simple like, "It worked before, right? Put it back to how it was then, when it worked. Once you’ve got that done and good, then take the next step with the modifications." I had to scrap a lot of work, but that did let me get the droid working again.

So then I tried to figure out when the last time was that I got enough credits to feel comfortable for a while, because that’s the point where my business was working, and those are the conditions I had to recreate and the point I had to start over from. I wasn’t too happy to realize that point was the smuggling job with the rebel group.

I thought long and hard about that– it caused another few sleepless nights. What would it mean for me if I took more work like that? What would it mean for me if I didn’t? Was it really that bad if I did it to supplement my regular, legal business and allowed it to stay afloat? After all, Booster and Myra are good people, and they smuggle things. Maybe Booster can point me in the direction of smuggling some harmless things for people who aren’t rebels and aren’t too dangerous, but I don’t have a lot of time to get that set up before I run out of money completely. At least for now, the rebel group is a somewhat known quantity with a potentially quick starting time.

I finally made up my mind sometime around 0300 hours last night. Booster’s never going to let me live this down after my whole "No more smuggling for rebels!!!" self-righteous stand, but this morning I commed Mr. Contos, the guy who hired me for the job last time. He remembered me, and I asked if he had any shipments he needed to have delivered. He said he did, and he’s putting something together for me to pick up later today.

Besides, that Imperial raid last time had to be a fluke. There’s no way it’ll happen again at the same time I meet with the rebel group, and that means I’ll get the credits to afford Solstice without having to deal with all that other ugly stuff. In and out. No lingering. Drop off, get credits, leave. I can handle that.

I hope I’m doing the right thing.

I bought a small on-board caf machine for Solstice this morning. I couldn’t really afford it, but I needed it.

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Very realistic post I could really sense Wedge's inner struggle, but I can tell he's more or less comfy with his decision.