With a few words, warm support and the right lies she had lifted Kyso’s spirits. It was better that he feel good about what he’d accomplished, what he had done, what he could do. The less pressure on her, the better, considering what she had promised.

Althea turned away from him, to look over the room, the stacks and shelves, the array of grimy, below grade tech of all kinds. He hadn’t likely done it all himself, but it was the best attempt to preserve old Legionary technology that she had seen on a lost word.

“You’ve gathered quite a collection here,” she noted, turning back to him, smiling, hoping the statement sounded appreciating, implying that he should be proud.

Kyso shook his head, and his misery returned.

“Most of it doesn’t work,” he told her with a touch of the frustration she had heard before. Then his tone collapsed back into tiredness. “Much of the rest we don’t have the trilium to power.”

His eyes were full of shame – regret.

“I’m sorry,” he finished. “It won’t be much help to you.”

It was true. Nothing here was going to tip the scales on whether or not she was going to destroy the Macro. The grade was too low; the parts she needed to interface with the Macro couldn’t be here.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“Don’t worry about it,” she tried to be convincing.

He didn’t respond the way she’d hoped – instead choked back derisive laughter.

“How can you say that?!” his disbelief turned to fury. “We are going south!”

She took a step back, preparing for violence. Then the intensity, the anger in him just faded away, leaving him to collapse back down.

“I wanted to be prepared,” he told her, now seeming on the verge of tears, “in the slimmest hope that the Consortia would return. And now that you have…”

He trailed off, picked up a cylinder from the thruster unit, bent and worn, then suddenly threw it at the floor. A hollow metallic ring rung out, repeated as it bounced away from them. She looked back into his face – tensing herself for his next outburst – but it didn’t come. He looked at her, looking lost, then turned back to the table.

“This is useless,” he spread an arm over the whole assembly, spouting his frustration angrily. “It’s crap! It’s all crap.”

Althea wanted to tell him to stop, to tell him that everything was going to be all right, but held herself, waited.

“I wanted to show you,” his voice was pained again, holding out his hands, “that we’d preserved something – not just remnants, not this garbage. I don’t even know why I try with this; I’m not even a technician – an engineer. Do you know what I am – what I was?”

She shook her head.

“I was an actor,” He announced dramatically, “for close to a hundred anna – but here, now – no one understands the subtlety of a performance. They only need food, power, bits of remnant technology. Oneness, I despair for the future.”

He sat back down, heavily, head in his hands, shaking in unspent energy, giving up. Althea couldn’t suppress her sympathy anymore, stepped forwards, started to reach out to him, drew back.

No, it’s dangerous to get too close.

If nothing else, her experience on Hadhalho had reminded her of that.