For Appearances

No Space for Family [Chapter 21]

Landing the Ora usually wasn’t a problem. I think it was pretty easy to land, or maybe my dad was just a good pilot. Rarely did we have to think about strapping in before landing. When I was younger, I apparently even slept through some of our landings, there in the rear cockpit seat.

But never did we have to land with another ship forcibly latched onto us. It might have been possible to access the bad guy’s ship and force them to undock out in space, but our spacedock hatch was cut apart on the hallway floor instead of protecting us from the cold and airlessness of the outside. And so we descended to Yuzumaru with a little extra weight.

“Hold on tight,” said Dad, his hands tight on the controls. We had just hit the gravitational pull of the planet. Mom had already scanned a landing area that was both not too far from the settlement but also not occupied with trees and sharp rocks that would damage us further.

As gravity did its thing, I felt myself being pulled to one side of the Ora by another force. The horizon and everything below it began to move sideways past our front windows as we spiraled down, the port side thrusters and flaps struggling against the extra weight.

“Jeff,” Grandma spoke up. “I’m no pilot, but this does not seem like the best way to…”

Dad grunted, leaning with the movements of the ship. “Aida, thank you, but I’d rather… the ship’s power go to the engines… and not your calculations.”

With a movement like he was wrestling a big animal, Dad pulled us out of the spin, flung out the landing gear and set us down, heavier side first. I felt the sudden thump all throughout my body, but mostly in my chest.

“Perfect landing, Dad,” Terren cheered, stretching up from his seat to pat our dad on the shoulder.

Dad flopped his hands down from the controls and sat back. “No problem. All those years as a proper freighter pilot weren’t for nothing. Sometimes a load shifts and throws off the center of mass, but you don’t find out until gravity takes you again.”

Grandma cleared her simulated throat. “Well, now that we’re settled, I can speak once more, I assume. First, I may have spoken out of turn which may have been distracting. Secondly and more importantly, the power for the ship and the power for my systems are completely independent of each other. I know because I have the schematics at my computerized fingertips!”

“You caught me, Aida,” dad chuckled.

After the necessary systems checks were run and the ship’s engines cooled, we opened the rear hatch to let fresh air in for the first time since… well, not many planets we had visited on this trip were that fresh. I had almost forgotten what trees looked like. I went outside with Dad and Terren to make sure the landing hadn’t damaged any exterior systems.

A fourth person followed us out, all of his meager belongings packed in his one little bag. Plip bowed to us there on the cargo door.

“Good family, I bid you a well-deserved goodbye. I do hope that you can sort out whatever’s wrong with your AI in there and that you are able to do so without someone to tell egregious lies in your stead.”

I waived at him. “Don’t worry, I think my dad’s got the lying part figured out.”

Dad held my head with his hand and made me bow. “Yes, but better to do so the truthful way. Don’t get into too much trouble, now, Plip.”

That was possibly the shortest goodbye my family had ever had. But I guess it made sense. I mean, the bad guys’ ship was still attached to ours.

With a little bit of help from Grandma, we remoted into its systems again and forced its locking mechanisms to disengage. It separated itself from our ship and flopped to the ground with a loud crash and thump. All that we were left with was the hole in our own hatch.

“We can rip the hatch module from their ship and put it on ours,” Terren suggested that night at dinner.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Dad concurred. “A good bit of work, but it will make it more functional than just patching over the hole. Plus we’re not going anywhere until we meet up with Dr. Pois and figure out what to do with Grandma’s body.”

“Remember to make sure everyone knows that I’m not dead,” Grandma said. “And I can’t forget to reach out to my lawyer now that we’re near a communications beacon.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea yet, mom,” said my mom.

“Agreed,” Dad added with a nod. “When those phony security guys don’t call back to their boss or whoever, someone’s going to come searching for them. Which technically means they’ll be searching for us. Any more communications going out could be a means for them to find our location.”

“The people here on this planet seemed to be cooperating with them, though,” said Terren.

“Well,” Mom shrugged. “Little colonies like this don’t always have the agency to say no to things like that. And they don’t have the manpower to monitor and oversee their entire airspace, just around the major settled areas. If they noticed us setting down out here, hopefully they figured they didn’t need to engage in our little parley with those two… strangers.”

“Parley?” I asked.

“A negotiation,” Terren snickered. “Like how we negotiated those two cons off into space in the escape pod.”

I laughed with him. “I get it.”

“But if more of them come…” Dad sighed, hand to his cheek.

“The colony overseer might still be the same person as back then,” Mom suggested, wagging her fork. “I was on good terms with her. We were going to head into the colony sooner or later to see about options for… the body. If we can meet with the overseer and tell her what’s going on, they might be able to keep any more of those people from coming around.”

“And make sure Dr. Pois gets here safe too,” I added.

“Of course.”

“That’s what we’ll do, then. Amelia, you and Sola can go,” Dad said. “Terren and I will have to stick around here and get the ship fixed up.”

The next morning after breakfast, I got dressed in proper clothes and with proper shoes. It seemed like we were going to have to walk a while to get to the colony. At least it was going to be like a nature walk.

“Are you ready yet, Sola?” Asked my mom from the bathroom nook.

I joined her to answer. “Yes.”

Mom was staring at herself in the mirror, putting on makeup which was something I hadn’t seen her do in a while. Her hair was also brushed straight.

“Who are you and what have you done with my mom?”

Mom laughed. “What, I can’t choose to look good? I mean, maybe I just want to look like we haven’t been through heck and back this last week.”

“…That’s kind of like lying, isn’t it?”

Mom grabbed me before I could do anything and started tickling my sides. “Maybe that’s why those bad guys are after us. Because we’ve been lying too much.”

I struggled and laughed even after Mom let go. “I know… I know we’re lying to stay safe.”

Mom smirked and took another look at herself in the mirror, wiping away at a smudge under her eye with the tip of her pinky finger. “Well, in this case, I’m lying— appearance-wise— to make a proper impression.”

“How come you never wear makeup for Dad?”

Mom chuckled. “I wore plenty of makeup in the early days of us dating, even a bit into us being married. But then I figured out that your dad likes me for me, not me for what fresh face I can plaster onto myself.”