More Junker Tales - "Back Again"

[Hawk]

Jack Crow sat in a chair in the executive lounge staring out into space with a glass of rum in one hand and a digital display of star charts in another. He glanced at the maps for a while and then back out into space. He was glad to be back on this ship again sneaking through space, but he still didn't feel at home. He had been gone for a long time. He had also left for a reason. That fact hadn't changed.

Stephen Cruz came in a took a seat near him. He sat quietly for a while and then spoke. "I see you are still carrying the old maps."

"I'd never let them out of my sight. I've never uploaded them to any of the networks so they're just here safe with me. There are a few copies still out there somewhere I imagine."

"Did all of that come from Tinkerbell?"

"The original Junkers documented everything when they first came to Sirius long ago. Much of this has been uploaded into the intel network for the Congress for their own operations and just as a resource for smugglers. Some of it has still been a secret guarded by the arbiters, especially the intel on Gallia. In fact, I never even gave most of this to JT. When we decided to stay away from Gallia except in limited capacity, I decided this stuff should stay buried. Too much could happen if the wrong people have this."

"You mean the wrong people will make all the profit."

"No, I mean the wrong people will create a mess working for their own interests and not caring what becomes of it."

"You know you used to be one of those people Jack. When did you become so noble?"

"Stephen, the more wealth and power I accumulated, the more I saw myself becoming what I always hated. There are so many ways to justify what I was, and it's true, we deserved what we had. We worked hard for it. Still in the end I was gaining my success from other people's losses. Those losses were small in the beginning and we were robbing the big corporate giants. Somewhere along the way we became giants too."

"So, are you really regretting all of our success?"

"Not for a minute. At the same time I have to face the fact that I am different. I am not what I started out to be. I have a different view of the world now. Somewhere along the way, I decided that I want to do more. I want something good to come from my work. I'm still going to do things my own way, but I just can't go on serving myself without concern for the world around me."

"Even if you never end up living in that world again?"

"I'll probably never set foot on a planet again, but many people will. All the things that we love will depend on that. We may hate the houses and what they stand for, but without them, we wouldn't have a life out here."

"Jack, I've always respected you, but you're really not making sense anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"My friend, we are criminals. We always have been. From the earliest days of our youth on Planet Denver, to the navy, to smuggling and then to the Junkers. We've never done anything legit. Sure, we try to make ourselves look respectable because we have wealth and some degree of influence, but we will always be the criminals we have always been. Here you are telling me you want to act like a criminal again, but you don't want to BE a criminal again. That doesn't make sense."

"I know it doesn't. I'm just not ready to retire. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life living on that liner in luxury doing almost nothing, and I'm not going back to being what I was."

"So what are you now?"

"I don't know. I'm JT's friend and that's why we're doing this. It's different. It probably won't make any difference at all in the long run, but it's a chance for us to be in space doing what we do best and being a little more than common criminals."

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