The Northwest Passage

[The Syndicate Leagues]

Location: Laptev System, Planet Taymr, Upper Orbit

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Astrocartographer's Logs, UN|Hellion;

Riehl: - Hold me down if I'm to paint this data into anything approaching cartography, when it's writ-large in 'Tonian charting standard.


Matching Outcast data to Libertonian Seperatist cut-and-shuts to Greenwave Unioner cartography was like riding a sailboat in a hurricane where the ocean couldn't decide if it was mayonnaise, gasoline, or custard.

Jan chimes in. She's insightful - she always is. Perennial flower in bloom. She says we should drop a telescope up here. I figured she'd be thinking about the signal buoys.

It's still a bright idea. You can see all the way to the Omegas. Just a case of having as little stellar debris as possible in your way. Like standing on a mountain of glass.

Like a boreal forest, the lumberjack hadn't touched yet. You've been traipsing too long with the Gaians, Riehl. You're forgetting that little old rocksniffer like you are completely out of their depth and getting crushed by the pressure.

Yet all of the wonder and mystery was still home. Still the Tanner. Still ours. Still close to the heart.

Like realising your house has an ancient basement - or that the cave that you were born in had a crystal lattice as long as your arm. Beautiful. Shimmering rock.

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"Though the past is scarred and the future untold"
" Be the boot heavy, the vacuum cold."
"I of the Liga,  do not fold"
"For suits or saints or beggar's gold.
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