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Baeri likes to think that she’s a competent captain.
She’s been working long-haul cargo runs for longer than some of her current crew has been alive, unpleasant as that thought may be, and she knows what’s important. You make sure you’re able to stand on your own, even as you trust your crew to have your back. You never fuck with the airlocks when you’re drunk.
Most importantly, you don’t make decisions for the crew without their input.
Sitting in her office, chair swiveled to let her look out the porthole at the blur of hyperspace, Baeri’s mind is stuck on the fact that she’s just wrecked things for everyone on the ship. It’s one thing to do stupid shit when you’re the only one on the line for it, stars know that she did plenty of that as a kid, but her actions affect more than just herself. Baeri’s supposed to know better.
Baeri forces an inhale, holds it, and focuses on the facts. They’re on the Empire’s bad side now, and in a much more tangible way than they had been before. The names of her ship and her crew have been recorded, and it’s only a matter of time before a bounty comes down on their heads. Money’s getting tight, especially because they weren’t able to make their delivery on Poltergeist. Kinori’s got blood on her hands, and she doesn’t seem like the type who’ll be able to wash it off easily.
With a spasm of her taxed diaphragm, Baeri is made to exhale. She got them all into this mess, and she’ll be the one to get them out of it. One thing at a time.
She’s no stranger to fake IDs, and she’d be willing to bet that neither are the majority of her crew. Fake IDs aren’t cheap, though, but at least it’s not like they’ll need the sort of high quality fakes that’ll work in the Inner Rim. Small perks of being on the Empire’s bad side, it looks like they’ll need to stick to the Outer Rim for the next while. Grabbing her tablet, Baeri starts a running list of the things she’ll need to look into, new jobs and budgets and forgers she’s crossed paths with before.
That tightness in her chest refuses to ease. All that she can do is try to fix things, but that doesn’t change the fact that she was the one to wreck them in the first place, the one to get cocky and bold and pretend that her authority holds any weight in the wider galaxy.
It’s the thing she always forgets: no matter how much time is spent building something, it can be burned in one thoughtless moment.
Baeri takes another breath, measured, releases it through carefully not-clenched teeth. Self-blame doesn’t actually get her anywhere. All it is is a comforting excuse, a spiral that she can sit in instead of actually working to fix things. She knows this. It’s been covered in more than one seminar, so she knows better than to wallow in thoughts of the damage she’s caused her crew, the ways that she’s let down these people who have trusted her to ferry them safely through the galaxy.
It may be true, but true doesn’t always mean helpful.
Focus on what you can control. Plans are helpful. Reaching out to less than legal connections about jobs is helpful. One-on-one meetings with the crew to check in with how they’re doing and see if there is any specific assistance she can provide, that’s helpful.
Baeri cracks her neck, flexes her fingers, ignores the ratcheting tension along her spine. She made this bed—it’s time to get around to fixing it.