Step Mother Board

No Space for Family [Chapter 2]

I could have gotten out of there if I tried. My brother’s and my rooms used to be secure storage areas back when the Ora was a regular freighter. They were rooms where valuable or fragile cargo was stored away and protected. That way, if someone boarded the ship to steal things, they would have to go through another level of defense for the good stuff.

My dad once said the code could even keep the freighter crew away from the contents inside. The only person able to access it would be the owner of the goods once the ship arrived at its destination. My brother responded that it was probably to keep the pilots away from any fancy alcohol or other goodies being shipped. My mom added that presently, the ship’s special cargo was me and my brother, and my dad agreed.

Once again, I probably could have gotten out of there if I tried. After all, I knew the locking code for my room, but not the one for my brother’s room that I was residing in. Mostly I just wanted to hang out there quietly and make everyone else feel bad when I missed out on all the fun.

Whatever was going on out there, it was taking a long time. It must have been twenty minutes or more, but I didn’t care enough to check the time. Okay, it was twenty-three minutes. Just before it hit twenty-four minutes, a single siren blared about the ship.

I jerked myself up and went to the hub. “Grandma, what’s going on out there?”

No response came. It was impossible to hear through the locked bedroom door. The ship seemed stable beneath my feet, but that didn’t always mean anything. I decided that enough was enough.

“Sola!” My grandma suddenly interrupted. I was halfway through prying at the bezel surrounding the hub screen to get at the wiring.

I jerked back, her voice directly in my ear. I sat back on the cot in case she was looking. “Uh, what’s up Grandma? Everything okay out there?”

“Just… offer me a little guidance, little one. I do trust your book learning after all.”

“Sure?”

Her voice almost had a worrisome tone. “If you needed to get through a door without access to the buttons and controls, what might you do?”

“No idea here,” I said with a shrug, looking at the half-dangling metal sheathing around the hub. “What was that warning, though? How are the Froungles?”

“They are… on their ship still. With your brother and father. Oh dear. They seemed nice at first. Well, your dad synthesized the part the little… guys needed and headed over there with his tools. But just a bit ago the docking hatch slammed shut and that warning went off. Something automatic, definitely not something I ever decided to do.”

“And mom?” I asked, unsuccessfully trying the controls for the bedroom door. “Where is she at?”

“She’s… at the airlock door. Our side, at least. With the few tools that your dad and brother didn’t take. And cursing up a storm, I should add. You’re lucky not to be out there to hear it.”

I stomped my foot. “I’ve heard all those words before, Grandma! Let me out of here so I can do something!”

“Your dad wouldn’t like it if I put you in danger, Sola.”

“You’re putting my dad in danger right now because you’re not letting me help! And Terren, too! You’re just gonna let them be captured and die with the Froungles because you hate my dad! He’s the only one who can turn you back, you know!”

There was a moment of silence, which was strange considering all things.

“I don’t hate your father, Sola,” Grandma finally spoke up again. “Even after the accident. He’s a precious part of my family and I know he loves your mother. Now, he told me you would try to break out of that room there with your little hacking proclivities. And right now, we need to break into the Froungle ship’s systems so we can keep them from disconnecting from us or whatever. How about you teach an old dog a new trick?”

“Well, the easiest way is to brute force it.”

Grandma tried to synthesize the click of her tongue. “That’s what your mom is already trying to do. And I don’t have a physical body anymore, so anything like that is out of the question.”

“That’s not it!” I said, pacing about the little room. The simplest set of words to explain it to my little old grandma was dancing about my head. “The space dock interlock between ships usually syncs up and only lets people through when it’s safe on both sides. That’s our way in. We just have to try every possible combination of security code to get access to their systems.”

“Like the time you opened the dial lock on my suitcase and got into your present before your birthday…”

I laughed a little bit. “Uh, yeah.”

“As fine and dandy as that sounds, little one, do you know how many possible codes could be out there?”

I shrugged. “Technically infinite, but you’d be surprised how simple people can be. And on top of that, do you know how many processor cores Dad has packed in back there?”

“Yeah, processor cores, whatever that is. What do I do, Sola?”

“Just… imagine the door to the Froungle ship being locked up with one of those combination locks, Grandma. Just… roll through them all. And while you’re at it, let me out of this little room, too!”

The lights flickered in my room. The door suddenly slid open without another word from Grandma Aida.

I ran as fast as I could to the airlock. The hatch door of our ship was open and the exterior port of the Froungle ship awaited. My mom was on her knees, tools strewn about, her sleeves rolled up, and sweat collecting on her brow. “I should have known you’d be out sooner or later, Sola Rae,” she said back, breath heavy.

“Grandma told me what was going on.”

“I’m in!” The voice came suddenly from the speaker above.

My mom glanced up suddenly. “In what, mom?”

“Their system! I don’t know how I did it, but… something just came along and decided to work. But…”

“But?” repeated my mom.

“But?” I said for a third iteration.

“None of this makes sense. Even though I supposedly understand their little freakish language. It’s not even a language anymore!”

My mom huffed and picked up a wench from her pile of tools. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’m still going to try and force their hatch open, even if I have to disassemble it piece by piece. Their hull is all put together with fasteners that don’t match any of our tools, though!”

“That’s it!” I shouted all of a sudden.

“Sola, my dear,” my mom said back, holding one ear. “I love you, but spare me just for a bit.”

I ignored her, but only for the good of the situation. “Grandma, How many fingers did the Froungles have? Mom, did you see them?”

“Sola, we will have plenty of time for your knowledge quests after we save your dad and brother,” said my mom with another sigh.

“Grandma, please!” I said, glaring up to one of the ceiling speakers.

“What the hell does that matter? And how should I know?”

“Just scan through the recent camera archives. See if you can get a look at their hands.”

“Uh, how do I do that again? Where are those archive things? Okay, this is it. There’s the little… buggers. Four fingers if you count the thumbs… if you can call them that. Eugh, they’re so weird!”

“Base eight, Grandma!” I shouted, smacking at the wall. “Convert the binary signals in their systems to base eight instead of base ten!”

“I have no idea what that means! But it is working… somehow! Now it’s all getting pieced together in their little weird language. I’m seeing their systems just like I see ours.”

My mom stopped her work and stood up. “You’ve what now?”

“We hacked them, mom!”

She rested her hands on her hips and shook her head. “Well, this is the last thing any parent should say, but Sola Rae, you might be reading too many books. Mom, what can you get into? The door control here? Maybe their comms systems? No, their cameras! So we can see where Jefferson and Terren are!”

“Slow down!” Grandma complained. “Oh my, I do see them! And as for hearing them… boys!”

The speakers crackled all about the ship. “Aida?”

“Grandma?” Said Terren’s voice.

My mom dashed off suddenly in the direction of the cockpit and I followed after. We soon had the video feeds from the Froungle ship pulled on the viewscreen “What’s going on over there? Are you fine?”

My dad and brother seemed just fine, their bald heads shining with sweat. “Yeah, uh,” my dad stumbled, sleeve to his brow. “I’m not sure why you’re all in their systems, but we are fine here.”

“Dad disconnected a fitting before shutting off the proper valve,” Terren said mockingly. “Caused a big leak. Made us a little loopy.”

“You can say that again,” my dad said with a shrug. “The environmental controls triggered here and shut the hatch. I’m guessing the same thing happened over on that side. The Froungles weren’t too troubled by the gas leak, but they seemed a little upset about their computer systems being breached. Sola wouldn’t happen to know anything about that?”

I stepped out from behind my mom to reveal myself to the camera. “I was… worried.”

Grandma spoke up before my dad. “I suppose I fed into that worry a bit.”

My mom stared up at the ceiling as if talking to my Grandma, despite her being all throughout the ship’s systems at that point. “Well, we can’t be too cautious these days. Jefferson, Terren, come back as soon as you can!”

My dad and brother nodded. My mom was quick to turn off the video and audio feeds manually. I was about to turn face and retreat out of the cockpit area when my mom called my name.

“Sola Rae Umburter-Ankern.”

There it was again. I didn’t dare turn back. I hunched my head down and said the only thing that wouldn’t get me in trouble. “Yes?”

“I know you were only trying to protect your dad and brother, but your dad also warned you about this. About activating the computer’s heuristic complexes while Grandma Aida is still embedded in the system.”

The voice of my Grandma played through the speakers again. “Again, probably a little bit of my fault. To be honest, I really don’t understand a thing that went through these circuits of mine during all this.”

“Still,” my mom said with a sigh. “The more circuits that get intertwined with your consciousness, the harder it will be to divorce you from the system and get… everything back in that human brain of yours.”

“Assuming we get that far,” Grandma said.

“Assuming we get that far,” mom parroted.