RidOv Chpt-25

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==Ridiculously Overboard!! (A Captain Roberts Tale!!)Chapter 25 - Coming to Terms Who You Are==
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"Let me guess...
...you've never felt welcomed before." Larry commented. There were assigned crewmen keeping watch shipboard, and "The XO" was playing escort to Captain Roberts in the main city.
'I...I don't remember it, no." Amanda admitted. "this is-it's weird, okay?"
She left her Eye on the ship, plugged into a port at the commanding officer's station, and was wearing an eye-patch.
A saucy, Piratey eye-patch.
"Relax, Lori's minding the ship." He told her, "These people, you brought them good news, and evidence of it. The Nav data we ripped from their ship means some of the folks here, who lost people, might get to see them again alive, and you stopped predators who've been hitting them on a quarterly schedule like clockwork. It's a big deal to them."
"You sold the guns?"
"All of them." he asserted, "We even got cash payments for 'em, so you can make a payroll and hire help...but you brought them a hero."
"What?"
"yourself...by extension the rest of us." Larry explained, "Not all those romantic notions you've got are wrong, Amanda. People do need heroes, and governments don't have all the answers. Sometimes because they don't have the equipment, sometimes it's because they fail in one place to succeed somewhere else."
"But...I wanted to be the greatest-"
"Greatness isn't about power." he interrupted her. "Feel this? the way these people are happy to see you? This is what it means to be 'great'-to be loved by strangers because of what you do, not feared because of what they think you are."
'I...killed people." she admitted. "Desmond helped, but..."
"Hmm. But were they good people, or bad people?" he asked. "The 'pirates' in your stories, like Westey in 'The Prince's Bride'? what did he actually do in the story? Did he come down on some lonely town, and terrorize them into giving him stuff, take their families away? hurt innocent people?"
"No."
"That's right, and you want to be 'the GREATEST' right? would preying on innocents make you 'great'?"
"Ihm...no."
"There's your answer." he said. "you want to be Great, even 'the greatest', okay, this is your living lesson." Larry explained. "you can be a bandit and a predator who terrorizes the innocent, or you can prey on the monsters, make the OTHER Pirates and Bandits feel the fear they inflict on everyone else. There are hundreds of worlds out here with little towns and communities like this one, and they don't have a government strong enough to make those predators afraid. Does that sound fair to you?"
"Nobody came to save me..." she whispered.
"That's because there wasn't anyone like you to come." he told her. "I owe you breath and life, Captain, like my grandmama, who was of The Folk taught me, I owe you a debt for the lives of my crew, I'll follow you wherever you want to go, for as long as you'll have me, but I'd like to follow you in stopping the kind of things they did to you, and do to people like these."
He leaned back to look at the celebration going on, "It's up to you."
"We should help get their people back." Amanda decided.
<{"Yes, hostage rescue is a good choice."}> Desmond whispered in her mind.
"Lead on, Captain." Larry said. "Let's truly be the greatest. Take it from me, being mediocre? Sucks."
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