Too Old to Be Useless

[Zelot]

Part I







It seemed the staff was with him constantly. It was six and a half feet high, made of a finely polished hickory wood, cut from the grove just outside his family's villa. The tree was cut and the staff fashioned by his Grandfather. It was an old custom of the Corsairs, though most families didn't follow it anymore. It was meant to be a way for a Corsair man to maintain his roots on Crete, to stay connected to them, no matter where they went. Though most in his family had not grown old enough to really need the staff for walking, it was mostly a ceremonial thing.



The staff had been ceremonial for him too; it used to stand next to his study door, though recently it had gone with him almost everywhere. For a time it stood next to his bedroom door, though everyday it got closer and closer to his bed. Barely a day went by anymore where he didn't need the staff just to get out of bed in the morning. He had never been the best of fighters, though he could usually hold his own, but the man's determination had taken him to places and given him power most people in Sirius only dream of.



How far he had come, he thought about it to himself. Gazing at the staff, he thought about his Grandfather. He had been the last great leader of his house. Respected among the families of Crete, with a sizable fleet, his Grandfather had been all that the head of a Cretan family should be. He was only ten when his Grandfather died, and the mere thought of it still caused him agony. He had loved his Grandfather absolutely. What a different life he might have had, his family might have had if his Grandfather had not died. But he had. His father had been nothing like his Grandfather. The man was often dumbstruck by genetics. How could father and son be so different? How had his father been so different from his grandfather? How had he been so different from his father? Where his Grandfather saw his family and its assets and reputation as something to be protected, his father saw those same things as things to be bargained, wagered and risked.



The man was seventeen when his father died, but even in that time his father had managed to destroy the family's reputation, and devastate its holdings. The fleet was lost to infighting with other families and failed exploration ventures. All that was left was a few small craft, a single gunboat, and the family Villa. Few seventeen year olds know the first thing about running a large Cretan family, let alone brining one back from the dead. For a year he tried, though it is possible no one could have tried hard enough to save his family. He had tried to hold the family's allies and retainers, but most found better arrangements with the larger, more reputable families. The contracts and agreements his Grandfather had made were not being followed, but there was nothing he could do. He was to carry his family's casket to the grave.



This part of the story has been told time and time again, so there is little need to belabor the details. An indigent man showed up at the doors of this crumbling family's villa. He was offered dinner, and a bed, and the two men ate, and then moved to the old study, where they talked for hours. When the two men walked out of the door of that study, there was one less Cretan family, the Sephardi family was dead, and Miguel Sephardi was reborn as a member of the Corsair Brotherhood.



Miguel Sephardi looked at the staff sitting by his bed again. So much time had gone by since then, since Pedro came to that villa, where Miguel now sat in bed, and changed his life. This part of the story too has been covered pretty well in other places, so no need to go into it too thoroughly. Miguel Sephardi rose through the ranks of the Brotherhood; he fought in the Rhienland war, against the AW, the NovaPG, the SCRA and countless others. He was the head of Security for the Council of Elders, a Centurion and finally Elder and Generalissimo of the Corsair Brotherhood Fleet. But those things also lay just slightly more recently in his life than his childhood. Miguel Sephardi had gotten very old. He could barely get into a Titan anymore, though once he did, he could still hold his own. But it had been two years since he had stepped down as Elder and leader of the Brotherhood. Even before he stepped down, he know of the sickness, the cancer, it ate away at his left hip and leg. He knew it would spread further eventually, but he was going to die of old age soon enough either way, so it wasn't of much concern to Miguel. Sitting in bed that morning, there were other things on the old man's mind.



Sephardi needed something to do. He had tried to help the Brotherhood on the diplomatic front a few times, though as usual, the Council generally got in the way. Miguel didn't dislike the Council per say, he had been involved in the negotiations to set it up, he had sworn to protect it's security, and he had been a member, but he knew, from all of those positions the dangers of the Council. The Elders were not bad men, nor bad leaders, they did what they felt was best of the people, nobler men he could not think of. The problem was that the Corsairs were at their heart, a clan based people. The families had run their own affairs for years, and in turn the nation's affairs were dealt with. Each family controlling a section of Crete and a section of space and doing what they felt best with it. Handling affairs how they decided. When Pedro called together the Council of Elders, all that changed, and now everything had to be agreed on. Miguel had seen it in long experience, and he had lived enough to understand human nature. Agreement is hard to come by, and Miguel knew, and had seen how it could paralyze the Corsairs from action. He knew that it was possible, that in a moment of critical importance, it could destroy everything through inaction. Sometimes decisive stands had to be taken, and that could not happen when everyone must agree.



Miguel had taken the Brotherhood out of the Council, a move that would forever loom large in his legacy, though now, the Brotherhood sat in the Council, so if he wanted to play the diplomacy game, he had to make nice with the Council, though it wasn't something Miguel was very good at. Miguel knew he had to find something else to do with his time. He couldn't spend days in a fighter cockpit anymore, but he could outfit a Raba quite to his liking, and all sorts of fun things can be done with gravity in space. So Miguel had taken some money and put together a transport and crew and was all set to take off on a new venture. There were few Corsairs who understood the infrastructure of the nation like Miguel Sephardi. He had spent countless hours discussing the economic issues Crete, the trade issues, the diplomatic issues. Miguel was uniquely qualified for a less than unique task, moving freight. He knew what was needed and where it was needed and more importantly he understood when and why. He had never had much interest in money, though it seemed in his old age, he was developing a bit of a passion for it, although only to keep track of his score on the way to the grave. Sephardi Shipping would be the last chapter in the great story of Miguel Sephardi of Crete.



All he has to do to get there is manage to get out of bed. He looked at the staff'€¦'€¦

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