Cresting Arc, Query

Chapter 7 Query

“C’mon,” whined Jia, leaning across the table and pointing a spoon at both of her siblings in turn. “Anything that Mom point blank refuses to tell us has to be good.” Aiona and Cody frowned at one another, then at their sister. Aiona was the first to speak.

“Listen, if Mom says to stay out of it, that’s what we are going to do. We don’t want to end up grounded for the rest of the school year. It’s bad enough being stuck at home until the holidays.”

“At least you guys get out for extra curriculars,” Jia said, digging her spoon into a mound of half-melted ice cream and searching out a piece of cookie dough. “I have to come straight home after classes, but look at me! I’m not the one being a huge wimp.”

The two glared at her, and finally Cody shook his head. “S’not worth it. We’ll just get caught again. Besides, who really cares who this Boomer guy is, anyway?”

“Obviously Mom does! You saw how she reacted!”

“Yeah, well, that’s Mom’s business.”

Jia frowned, a frown that slowly worked its way into a practiced pout.

“Listen, J.J.,” Aiona said, scraping the last bite of ice cream from her bowl and holding it there for apparent study for the moment, “I don’t understand why you are so insistent in this. It’s not like it’s something that is going to have a huge impact in your life. Just be lucky Mom didn’t notice anything missing.” Aiona ate the final bite and placed her spoon back in the bowl before taking it over to the recycle station.

They had a point, Jia had to admit. But it was a point that was easily circumnavigated. “Who says we even have to get into Mom’s stuff?” She had her siblings’ attention. Quickly, she continued on. “Listen, there are sure to be records of this stuff in other places. We’ll start with Mom’s service record and go from there.” She was losing them, she could see. Stubbornly, she pressed forward. “Okay, how about this. Either of you start feeling uncomfortable and you are welcome to back out. How about it?” Cody thought about it, then nodded. Aiona sighed.

“Alright, fine. But public searches only. Anything other than that, and I bail.”
Jia grinned, knowing she had won. “Alright, we’ll start over the holidays, then.”

***

Jia groaned. Another dead end. She had been poking around on the network for hours and so far, all she could find on anyone named Boomer were urban legends. As much as she might want to believe what they said, she knew her brother and sister weren’t going to like it.

Cody looked up from some project he had been working on. Something involving the reconstruction of something or another’s nervous system. She’d given up trying to understand when she realized it had nothing to do with mechanics or electronics. “So, we both know you must have found something by now. Spill.”

Aiona stood and walked over to Jia, tapping a finger on the ‘pad. “Yeah, so what did you find out about this Boomer fellow?”

“Well… all I really found were urban legends. Take a look.” She handed the pad over to Aiona, who read for a moment, then frowned and handed it off to Cody.

“A pirate? A real live pirate? No way. You must have your wires crossed, little sis.”

Jia gave him an icy stare and took the ‘pad back. “Fine, you find something on him. Listen, Mom’s logs mentioned that he said he was a pirate. So this must be the guy!”

“Jia, this says he can win a fist fight with a space ship and that he’s ten feet tall.” Aiona didn’t look or sound very impressed.

“You know how these things exaggerate,” Cody said. “He’s probably about five foot nothin’ and ninety pounds soaking wet.”

“Listen, that doesn’t matter! This is Mom’s pirate, all right.”

“So suppose it is,” Aiona said, hoping to stave off another argument. “Let’s put this aside for now. What can you find out about Mom? Why was she entering non-military logs?”

Jia worked in silence for a while, her frustration at the lack of available information growing. Everything just seemed to stop.

“Well?”

“Alright. I found out what she was doing on that other ship. She was a courier for a company called Stardust Black Industries. But that’s about all I found.”

“What do you mean, all you found?” asked Cody.

“Well… there was nothing on the public spectrum, so I sorta hacked into her personnel files with the military-“

“Jia! You are going to get us all killed!”

“Relax, it was a really basic encryption. Not even alarm tagged. We’ve got all the time we need with this. Not that it’s going to do us any good.”

“What do you mean?” asked Aiona.

“Well… there’s a five year gap.” The other two sat in silence, waiting for her to explain. “There’s nothing there from 3110 to 3115. No records, no service, nothing.”

“There can’t just be nothing! Where would Mom have gone during that time?” Cody seemed emphatic, but there was a note of worry in his voice.

Aiona and Jia sat and thought for a while, Jia scrolling up and down the page she was looking at, hoping to pry information from the blank spaces between letters. She ran her hand through her auburn hair and gave the information a good while to shuffle around in her head. “Well,” she said finally, “Maybe Mom was captured by pirates! That would explain it!”

“Captured by pirates?” Cody said scornfully. “Just how old are you again?” Jia stuck out her tongue in response.

“Well,” she said, “You have a better explanation?”

Cody thought for a while, but he didn’t seem to have a response. “Listen, all I am saying is it couldn’t have been pirates.”

“Alright, Mr. Logic. Explain Mom’s scars.”

“She was a navy captain!” he shouted, exasperated. “She could have gotten those on a hundred different missions!”

Aiona stepped in at that moment, presumably to break up a fight before it picked up momentum. “Alright, well, we really don’t know what happened, so why don’t we just ask Mom?”

“Like she’d tell us. This stuff’s probably government classified. Hey! Maybe that’s it! Maybe Mom was a secret agent!”

Aiona snorted. “Like anyone in our family would ever be a secret agent.”

“I’d be a secret agent.”

“As if you could keep a secret that didn’t directly benefit you.”

This time it was Cody who broke up the fight. “Alright, alright. So okay, whatever Mom was we aren’t finding out. No records, and no way Mom’s gonna tell us. Let’s just give up and go do something productive for a change.”

“I am not giving up!” Jia said, rather loudly. “Listen, we know where the information is. We saw dates matching the missing years on those data disks. All we have to do is get to them again.”

“Oh no,” Aiona said, “We already got in trouble for that once, and diplomatic immunity won’t protect us from an angry mom.”

“What, are you scared?” The tension thickened as the two sisters stared at one another, each testing the will of the other, words flying between their minds. Aiona finally slumped, giving in for the moment. “Then it’s settled. All we have to do is make sure we put them up before Mom gets home.”

***

They found the data disks at the bottom of Anne’s footlocker.

“Hurry, open one!”

“Which one?”

“Try the earliest one.

“Don’t listen to him. Try one of the ones from the missing years.”

Jia nodded, sliding one in that was labeled only with a date. She read for a moment, then hissed loudly. “You guys aren’t going to believe this!”

“What?” asked Aiona.

“Read it!” said Cody.

Jia took a breath and began to read.

“Second officer’s log. We had another successful raid today. With any luck, this will be enough to stock the Flying Fist for another two months. We’re planning on actions in heavily patrolled Confed space, but the fleet is doing well, and the other pirates…” The three looked at one another. It was Jia who broke the silence.

“You know what this means… Mom was a pirate!”