The First and Last Flight

No Space for Family [Chapter 29]

“Well dang, I didn’t teach her that.”

Mom jerked up so fast that she nearly threw Terren and me off of her. My Dad was coming our way, eyes still up at the sky, when Mom nearly tackled him, pounding her hands against his chest and finally burying her face in his collar.

“Shh, it’s okay,” he said, stroking her hair. I ran up beside him and grabbed at his free hand.

“If not you, then…” Mom sobbed, then shook her head harder. “It was her?”

Dad shrugged. “I was being dragged away by the big fellow, and then I heard my own voice through the communicator. I wasn’t aware she was… an impressionist. And I certainly didn’t give her any instructions on how to fly. But… I suppose she did what she thought she needed to.”

“Damn it, Mom,” sniffled my mom, pulling her face away. “What are we going to tell her lawyer?”

“Before the lawyer…” interrupted Terren, “That wanna-be bully and his cronies think they’ve done their job. Dad, you should make yourself scarce before they believe otherwise.”

“Indeed,” hummed Dad, glancing back to the tarmac.

Mom shuddered and gritted her teeth. “That’s right. Time to put on one last act, I suppose?”

“More lies?” I teased, bouncing up and down on my toes.

“Just telling them what they want to hear,” said Mom, stroking my hair. “Come back in with me, but… give me some space.”

Dad slinked off into the shadows while Mom stomped back to the administration building and Sakura. Lanky was still on the ground under her restraint. He barely had a chance to peel his head off the ground with a smirk before Mom jabbed at his side with the heel of her boot.

“Ugh,” he winced and groaned, still pressed against the floor by the Overseer’s hold. “Too little, too late, woman.”

“I’m so sorry, Amelia,” sighed Sakura, shaking her head.

Mom bounced her heel up and down. “You can make it up to me by holding him there while I break his ribs.”

“Do your worst,” hissed Lanky.

“Amelia, you don’t have to do this,” sighed Sakura. “Not in front of your kids.”

“Fine then,” Mom smirked back at us. “Kids, go with Dr. Pois back up to the Overseer’s office. I’m going to make sure he doesn’t think up any plans for the rest of us.”

“Hold it,” snapped Lanky, struggling against Sakura’s grasp. “I don’t give a damn about the rest of you. My orders were to deal with Umburter and the AI core on your ship. As long as my ribs stay intact, I’m fine with having my men pick me up and get the lot of us off this backwater, geriatric colony without any more fuss. No need to trifle with a woman and children. And of course, the Doctor here, who is under a nondisclosure that she should abide by still.”

Doctor Pois huffed and shook her head.

Sakura waved at my mom for her to back up before releasing Lanky’s arm back to him. “Don’t think you’ll be able to get any of those services I promised you,” huffed the Overseer.

Lanky stood, brushed himself off, adjusted his jacket, and gave a final rub to his wrist. He looked at me and my mom and the others before picking up his walkie-talkie from the ground. “You’ve confirmed that the ship is destroyed, I hope?”

“It’s space debris now, boss,” said the respondent. “Just as he was about to jump off into his warp field.”

“As I expected. We’re done here. I’ll be on the tarmac momentarily for a touch-and-go.”

I bit my lip as Lanky walked out the door without another word or look. I ran to the window and nearly shouted as I saw him cross paths with Dad, still in his disguise. Lanky didn’t react at all and allowed Dad to join us inside.

“You needn’t help them,” Sakura sighed and relaxed her shoulders.

Dad yanked off the technician’s cap and threw it down. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Sakura did a double-take and then stared at my mom. “Amelia… this was part of your plan?”

“Part of someone’s plan,” Dad huffed and shook his head.

“Having them blast the ship apart…” Mom slumped to the ground and held her hands to her face. “The Ora, the core… Mom’s consciousness, all gone.”

“What matters is that we’re safe,” Dad sighed. “Aida did… what she needed to.”

Doctor Pois stepped up, shaking her head. “It is partially my fault for allowing myself to be caught. I hope you can forgive me for everything. It is unfortunate that you could not salvage your mother’s body or the copy of the consciousness in your core.”

Sakura blinked at the doctor. “We do have her body, though. Quite safe and secure.”

“But then…” Mom glanced up, looking around. “A copy of her consciousness?”

Doctor Pois wrung her hands together. “I assure you, the process your mother went through… didn’t erase a single neuron or memory in her brain. But I assume that the optimal resolution here was to reintroduce her memories formed during her time in your core.”

I jumped up to the doctor. “So you mean… Grandma is all still in there?”

“In her body?” puzzled the Doctor. “Of course. Everything up until the accident. Just… nothing new, assuming she’s been held unconscious.”

“Perhaps…” Dad said, rubbing at his head. “This would be the preferred resolution… especially for her.”

Doctor Pois nodded slowly. “I can offer any of my expertise to aid in her healing process.”

Sakura shuffled between us. “She’s in good hands at the moment, so I don’t think there’s any rush. But first, I think it would benefit us all to… rest for the night.”

As Sakura said that, I felt the tiredness take me. Out the front window, I couldn’t help but notice the bad guys skating against the tarmac for only a moment or two before jerking back up into the sky. Once the glow of the engines departed our field of view did Terren peel himself away from the view.

“Here we go, imposing upon you once more,” said my mom.

Sakura held her arms across her chest. “Not too much. Alas, I hope you won’t find the chairs and couch in my office to be too terrible a prospect for the night…”

Terren shrugged and joined us. “Well, our bags are already up there.”

“Lead the way, Ms. Ishii,” Dad prompted.

I found myself nearly hanging off my Dad’s arm as we reached the top of the elevator. The closer we got to the Overseer’s office, the more tired I got. I almost thought that the loud ringing coming from the office was the result of a dream.

“A phone call? At this hour?” Sakura said, rushing ahead. “Did we leave something down below?”

She had the handset to her ear as we shuffled in, almost too tired to care. “From what? Who? Amelia, remind me of the name of your ship.”

“The… Ora,” responded Mom.

“Patch us through,” Sakura directed as she flipped it to speaker and set it down on the table.

“Here you are, Madame Ishii.”

The slight fuzz of long-distance radio crackled on. Other than that, the transmission was silent, punctuated by a rhythmic tapping. “Is someone there?” Sakura finally spoke up.

“Oh stars. Uh, I’m… depends on who’s asking.”

Dad stepped up to the table and slapped his hands on the shiny wooden surface. “Plip, is that you?”

“Mr. Umburter,” replied our old hitchhiker.

“And you’re aboard the Ora?”

“Yes, sir.”

My mom rushed up to grab my Dad’s back, shaking him happily. “The ship is… saved?”

“Hi there, Mrs. Captain,” Plip said back. “Uh, this gonna’ sound crazy and all, but I promise I didn’t try and steal your ship.”

“Explain everything,” said my Dad, anticipating Plip’s tale. “From the beginning.”

“Uh, first thing’s first. So you might remember I went and left you crazy lot back there for good, at least I thought. Well, this planet seemed nice, but it’s utterly desolate, at least for my sort of business. No real stores or bars, no real space port, and I just felt terrible going door-to-door to… see what I could gather from the inhabitants here. Well, terrible or not, I still had to get out there and make some sort of connection.

“I’ll tell you what, half of them didn’t even open their doors, and the other half just wanted to have me sit and talk with them about anything other than insurance. Nobody but a bunch of lonely old folks. The moment I saw you land here in the colony was about the same time I decided my prospects here were fully bust.

Here’s where I mighta’ done things a bit smarter, you know? I didn’t want to seem desperate or anything, so I mighta’ just snuck back into your ship. Just this evening, actually.”

“You could have just asked,” Terren sighed, long since settled into one of the office chairs.

“Shush, let him finish,” urged my mom. “Yeah, this evening was a little… frantic.”

“So what then, Plip?” urged Dad again.

“Gee. So, the lot of you were gone. Except for that peculiar AI voice. And even she seemed distracted. Then I heard that other ship make a landing. I was going to hop out and greet them, but then I remembered you all don’t have a lot of friends. So I decided to hunker down. And that’s where it all went crazy. The ship just started on its own. A whole takeoff procedure, with nobody at the controls. I was up in the cockpit because that AI woman was shouting at me to get out of the cargo bay with all your computers and junk.

“Then right as the ship was hitting space proper, there was a loud siren, followed by a jump right to warp, with me just standing there with no place to grab on. I might have heard a big explosion along with it, but none of that was my—“

Dad slammed on the table with his fist, interrupting the story. “Aida! Damn it.”

Mom leaned on his shoulder and stroked his back. “She did what she had to do.”

“She detached the cargo pod?” Terren said, sat up in the chair solemnly.

“With… her in it,” I added.

“The calculations she must have had to do…” Dad postured. “Detecting the missile… decoupling the cargo pod to intercept the blast while getting the rest of the ship past the warp threshold…”

Doctor Pois was at the window, looking up at the night sky, populated with stars. “And to make it seem to my captors like they had completed their mission. There’s a certain… selflessness that seemed to find itself in the build of this kernel. Both Hows and Aida. It’s a shame that I can’t study it.”

“Hey, friends,” Plip interrupted. “I’m glad we’re all on the same page now. But your selfless AI has left me a bit stranded, and I’m certainly no pilot.”

Dad huffed and stood up, clearing his thoughts with a clap. “Sure, let’s get you back down to us, Plip. We’ll give you coordinates to get you back into orbit, and then I’ll talk you through the landing procedure.”

“Better to do it before that patch job on the door fails,” Terren added.

“Wait, what’s going to fail?”