I Spy

No Space for Family [Chapter 15]

Dad paced for a bit as Cabbel’s automated system guided us in and out of warp and about the field of old scrapped ships. Most of the time, he stood leaning against the door frame, looking out into space.

“I should have mentioned, Mr. Jeff,” the little man called up to him. “The warp fluctuations are normal. My device is just adjusting parameters to keep any warp field swells from reaching the cores. Yet another tried and trusted safety measure!”

My dad turned back and flashed a wide smile. “You are certainly detail-oriented.”

“One must have that approach to be a scrapper,” Cabbel said, stroking the tip of his beard. “I guess it goes into other parts of life. Sorry, please go on, Mr. Plip.”

Our first guest was busy drafting a fake policy on his tablet, sweating and stalling the whole time. “Yes, well, I can’t yet determine if any warp core-related damage will be covered under our policy… assuming that damage or degradation comes from the warp core of another ship and not your own. Which obviously, may be a concern for you in this particular job setting. I mean, let’s be honest, these old ships aren’t insured. I could… possibly… contact my supervisor once the cockpit is free. But as you might know… with all the radiation that might come about with such an accident… the company might write off a ship with such damage as being totaled.”

“Totaled?” Inquired Cabbel.

Plip rolled his hands about, coming up with more fake definitions. “It’s when… a ship is too damaged to be worth fixing.”

“I have never heard such a thing,” Cabbel scoffed, hand to his face. “Rarely is a piece of machinery not fixable. We are floating in nothing but a sea of spare parts.”

“There’s an old story from our planet,” I interjected over the pages of my book. I had been listening while pretending to read.

“Let’s not interrupt, Sola,” my dad said back.

“No, we have time,” Plip said, nodding at me with pleading eyes. “Go ahead, I’d like some time to… write up more of the terms.”

Cabbel nodded at our first guest and then looked at me. “What is this story, little one? You must have caught on that I love stories of the past, especially from other cultures.”

“It is called the ship of Theseus,” I declared proudly, resting the book I hadn’t been reading. “There’s this ship. Not for space, but one that floats on water. Made out of wood. Our planet used to have a lot of water on it. And a lot of trees for wood. But… I guess it could work too if it were a spaceship made out of metal. Now that I think about it, it might have been more of an idea than an actual real story. But how it goes is the ship gets its rotten or broken parts of it replaced over time. Eventually, most of the parts are changed out. And the question people ask is if it’s the same ship, even though all the parts are different.”

Cabbel rapped on the edge of the table, accompanying a healthy chuckle. “I see, I see. I’d likely say that many of the ships in the Otrice Salvage company are like that. All well used, all with various spare parts and panels recycled into it from scrap. How does Cycles Go ‘Round look at a situation like that?”

Plip stifled a scoff. I hid back behind my book while he began to mumble more fakery to his mock client. “Ah, yes. Well, I’d have to refer to the official book of… statutes, which would give me a hard and fast number. But if I had to recall from the top of my head… we would have to start an… inquiry at around 45%. That is important since… since your company does all its own repairs. Which comes back around to the compensation we discussed. You would have to keep track of your time cost and potential losses caused by breakdowns and other eligible disruptions of business.”

Cabbel nodded silently as Plip stared him down nervously, dreading further questions. “Would the percentage be based on the mass of the ship or area?” Asked the little man finally.

Plip tugged on one end of his mustache. “Mass, of course.”

“Not a problem, then,” nodded Cabbel. “We value precision ourselves, as to be fair to our clients.”

A voice from the speakers in the common room broke the deal-making process. “Warning, low refrigerant pressure in port storage locker,” said Grandma with a clunky inflection.

“Is that a problem?” Cabbel asked, pulling his attention away from the agent.

Dad slid away from the cockpit door and began walking to the back of the ship. “No worries, just a door seal I have to tweak every once in a while to stop it complaining. Carry on.”

I followed my dad’s movement over the top edge of my book before slapping it down on the table. “This book is boring,” I declared, getting up to follow after my dad.

I found my dad in the cargo pod, door mostly closed. “That was you, right, Aida?” He asked, glancing at me as I entered just after him.

“Something’s weird, Jeff,” Grandma said.

“In what way?”

“It feels like… it’s like how it feels to have a cotton swab pushed too far in your ear.”

I held the side of my head reflexively. “Mom says you shouldn’t do that.”

Dad shrugged. “I agree with mom but I also think it’s fine if you’re careful. I think I know what you mean, Aida. It’s coming from the systems in the cockpit, I imagine?”

“Yes. And more than just the systems the little stranger told us about. I’m having to… push back.”

Dad hummed. “I knew that little box was suspicious. What are you trying against it?”

“It trying different access codes, but they’re all in a sequence. Kind of like its counting, but with numbers and letters.”

“That’s a brute force, Grandma,” I exclaimed. “Just like what we did with the Froungles.”

“I thought so, so I changed my access keys to something longer. I thought that would help.”

“That’s perfect, Grandma,” I said with a clap. “Dad, did you ever think Grandma would think of that if she were still in a person’s body?”

My dad shook his head and didn’t smile. “No. But we still need to stop it. And get some answers from Cabbel.”

While he was rushing out the door, a thought popped into my head. “Grandma?”

“Yes, dear?”

“The box he plugged in is accessing our sensor data. If you make pretend there’s a new sensor on our ship, you could inject some code disguised as sensor data to maybe get control of whatever program’s in that box.”

“I don’t know what that means, but that’s never stopped me before.”

I rushed out the door, waving my hands. “Okay, good luck!”

Cabbel had already placed himself in front of the cockpit door when I came out, blocking dad from entering. “It wouldn’t be good for either of us to interrupt the process mid-flight.”

Mom was down from the loft, listening in. Dad was holding out his hands in a begging motion. “Listen, I’ve tracked some malicious code trying to gain access to our system. So it’s either your fancy navigation box or your ship. They may have picked up something bad from another craft that you’ve connected to before. If you have a way to pause it and disconnect it, I have ways to run it in an isolated code container just to make sure.”

Cabbel stomped up and down. “It is ridiculous. And not possible. It will complete its job. And it is only doing its job. Your simple system must have wrongly flagged the autopilot as some sort of bug. I have done this with many ships, you know!”

My dad huffed. “I swear on my daughter here that I am serious. This is no simple ship you’re on. You must see.”

Cabbel stomped again. “I will not leave this place.”

My dad pursed his lips and looked back. “Plip here is a neutral party in all this. Plip, watch over the cockpit so we can be sure nobody touches it.”

Our guest sighed and waddled to Cabbel’s place. “Got it. Mr. Cabbel, as our new client, I shall make sure your belongings go unmolested.”

With a growl and a crossing of arms, the salvager stepped away and followed my dad. “This is no more than a basic freighter. What is this valuable cargo you’re carrying?”

Dad showed Cabbel back to the cargo bay with the core and all the storage arrays in all their shining and flickering glory. “This is no ordinary load, as you can see,” he said with arm outstretched. “We’re hosting an advanced AI. She told me herself that something is trying to hack away at our digital defenses.”

Cabbel breathed out slowly before stepping back, head shaking. “Darn. Now I’ve done it.”

“I’ll ask again,” my dad huffed, following, “What is in that box?”

“Another AI. Off an old stealthy spy ship we found out here.”

“Luckily our AI knows how to defend herself,” I said smugly.

“Sola,” snapped my dad.

“Let’s hope that’s true,” Cabbel sighed. “You have more processing power here, obviously. The AI in that box is an old model, too. No personality, no unnecessary chatter. Just navigation and piloting functions. It was trained to get ships through minefields without being detected or blown up. When my company got our hands on it, it barely needed any configuration to meet our needs. But to think it had other processes running in the background…”

My mom hummed. “And you’ve connected it to how many other ships?”

Dad shook his head. “It’s probably been searching for an appropriate ship to dig its claws into. Something well-equipped. Or maybe it just wants to spread spyware wherever it can and send stolen information back to whoever created it. Even if they’re not around anymore. Either way, you now understand why why need it disconnected from our ship. Once we have control back, I think our own AI can—“

Dad’s thoughts were interrupted by a sudden drop from warp. I held on to his leg while Cabbel and my mom leaned into the walls. Terren poked his head out of the bedroom with eyes half closed. “What’s going on?”

Plip was bent over on one knee outside the cockpit. “Nobody touched a thing.”

“Aida?” Dad called out. “Talk to me. All speakers are fine.”

“I put in a stop code to the baddie in that box.”