by R.E. Rowe
Chapter 17
Once back in their living quarters, everyone unsnapped their disrupters and took off the wearable devices. They piled up the weapons on a table near the food cubes.
Parker inspected a wearable glove. “Wish I knew how the thing worked.”
“Let me see the tablet,” Nora said.
Jayden grabbed his t-shirt and twisted it around. “Here you go,” he said, handing her his dad’s pride and joy.
Nora tapped on the screen. “Check it out,” she said, thrusting the tablet back at him.
Weird symbols and information continuously scrolled all over the screen. “What does it mean?”
“I’m not sure,” Nora said. “All I know is it’s entangled to the Space Command computer system. It must be some kind of status update.”
“Entangled?” Jayden asked.
“Entanglement,” Parker said. “It’s a quantum thing.”
“Sure, that explains it,” Jayden said, rolling his eyes.
Nora ignored them and continued tapping on the tablet’s screen. “I need to get into the mason’s computer lab, and convert these symbols into something I can understand. If anyone asks, tell them I went to get some air or something. I’ll be back,” Nora said over her shoulder, heading for the door.
“Just stay inside the airlock, would you?” Parker said.
Jayden’s eyes stayed on Nora until she disappeared. “That sister of yours is something else.”
“Yep.” Parker peered at the glove. “She tends to dance to her own drummer.”
“True story. I like how she dances,” Jayden mumbled, still staring in the direction of the door.
Parker put down the glove and shoved Jayden. “Excuse me?”
“Um, uh, nothing. Sorry.” Jayden picked up a food cube from a bowl and shoved it into his mouth. His eyes went wide. The cube tasted like the best cheeseburger and French fries he’d ever eaten. “Oh man, this one is good,” he mumbled through a full mouth.
Over the next few hours, Jayden fiddled with the hockey-puck-shaped disrupter. He figured out how to disable it and remove the cover, but still wasn’t sure how it worked. The insides resembled the guts of a cell phone he’d destroyed once. Instead of silver solder and small electronics, tiny gold pieces had been woven together using super thin gold thread.
Parker, BBgun, and Cleo watched as he took out what appeared to be a battery and started unweaving the thread. It was a long shot, but Jayden wondered if the parts might make some weapon they could use. Before long, he had pulled out enough thread to wrap around two fingers a hundred times. He tugged on the thread trying to break it. But it nearly sliced into his finger. Impressive, he thought.
“There’s a lot of gold inside that little hockey-puck,” Cleo said.
“True,” Jayden replied, tossing Parker a disrupter. “What if we used the gold thread to lasso Zepar shape-shifters when they’re still shimmering? We might be able to make a blaster out of the battery.”
“Genius,” BBgun said.
“Worth a try,” Parker added, peering at the device.
“Pull them apart. Take out the battery and unweave the gold thread. Let’s tie the strands together.”
Soon, they’d tied enough gold thread together to make a long wire to use as a small rope. Jayden wound it up and shoved it inside the empty hockey-puck-shaped disrupter cover along with three loose batteries. He snapped it closed.
Parker sauntered over to the wearable weapons and shoved his hand into a glove. “I want to test this thing out.” He pointed his hand at the far wall and made a fist.
Nothing happened.
Parker punched at the air.
Still nothing happened.
He turned toward Jayden and extended his hand. “I give up—”
But this time when Parker opened his hand, a bolt of electricity shot out from the glove as if he were Spiderman shooting a sticky web. The blast of electricity barely missed Jayden’s head, leaving a large black mark on the metal wall behind him.
Jayden dove to the floor. “Parker!” he roared. “Be careful. You nearly took my head off.”
Parker’s eyes went wide as he eyed the black mark. The jubilation took over. “Whoa.” He took a closer look at a glove. “Pretty cool. It was like I threw a bolt of lightning.”
“Yeah and you almost killed me.” Jayden said, climbing back to his feet.
Parker glanced at Jayden. “I think it fired when I opened my hand and shoved it forward. Boom, baby. I bet kicking motions fire the knee wearables.”
Jayden brushed himself off. “Just put it away, please!”
Parker grumbled but complied.
A few minutes later, Nora dashed through the doorway with an ecstatic smile. She sat down at the table. “Oh yeah. It is a beautiful day . . .”
BBgun glanced at the solid metal roof, then at the walls, and frowned. “How can you tell?”
Nora ignored him and continued. “Just beautiful.” She noticed the huge black mark on the wall. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” Jayden said. “Just your idiot twin testing weapons.”
She shook her head. “Yeah, whatever.”
“BBgun, ZapperGirl, why don’t you organize our food cubes or something?” Jayden asked them. “Altair3 says they added a new flavor. Smells like ice cream sundae, but tastes like chicken. See if you can find it.”
“Yum that sounds—” BBgun hesitated. “Good. I think.” He dashed to the cubes.
Cleo followed, glancing back at Parker a couple times. She knew something was up. “Meals with meat,” she muttered. “Meals with pasta, and meals with fish. Alien fast food. Wicked cool . . .”
“Altair3 said that?” Parker whispered.
Jayden shook his head. “Of course not, but it’s probably something he’d say.”
Nora glared at them. “Would you two get serious?”
“What’s up?” Parker asked.
“I was able to access Space Command’s core systems.” Nora pulled the red tablet out from under her black shirt and handed it to Jayden. “They use crazy levels of encryption for everything. The first level gives the coordinates for all of the Space Command bases. It even has an inventory of the supplies on each base. The Ga are meticulous. Hundreds of data fields are in each of their database records. They record everything.”
“The Ga system is in English?” he asked.
“Actually, it’s in a kind of Unicode,” she replied.
Jayden had no clue what Unicode meant, but he wasn’t going to admit it.
“I toggled a parameter to view everything in English,” Nora continued as if she were explaining how to ride a bike. “Each data file name is clear text. You know, not encrypted so that I could read it. The Ga have a set of files for every habitable planet. Each planet’s file tracks people, equipment, and just about everything else.”
“Anything on Leader Nuk’ana?” Jayden asked.
Nora shrugged. “Well, I think someone from Nuk’ana’s team is keeping details on Nuk’ana out of the database. His current location isn’t in there. At least I couldn't find it. Some of the files are in crazy languages I can’t read. The files I could, I hacked. Turned out to be a jackpot of information related to Space Command’s war activities.”
“How’d you manage to break in?” Parker asked.
“When we were at the hub, I entangled your tablet’s Quantum processor’s memory with a memory unit. I figured they replicated their databases and kept copies on every node just in case a particular location gets blown up. I was totally right. When their main database memory unit changes, the memory in this little tablet changes too.” She turned to Jayden. “Speaking of which, who gave that tablet to your dad anyway?”
“No idea,” he replied. “It was an award, I think. My dad showed me the thing after he’d received it at some trade show.”
“I don’t think it’s from Earth,” Nora said softly, shaking her head.
A crease deepened on Parker’s forehead. “Sis, can they trac
e it like they did your computers back home?”
“Doubtful,” she replied, sharply. “But honestly, I’m not exactly sure. I didn’t think they could track me back home either.”
Parker huffed. “Oh, great,” he said. “Now we’re stardust, for sure.”
Jayden held up a hand at Parker. “Dude, chill, would you please?”
Nora narrowed her eyes at her twin brother. “Look, we all want to get back to Earth, right?”
Parker rubbed his face and nodded. “Of course.”
She turned to Jayden. “I’ll spend more time hacking the next layer of encryption once everyone goes to sleep. If I can figure out the coordinates of Earth, we’ll be on our way. This tablet is a game changer for us.”
Jayden grinned. “Awesome. But hang on. We’ll need a galactic transport to take us home, right?”
Nora nodded.
Parker said. “How do we get a transport?”
A wide smile took over Nora’s face. “Steal one, of course.”
