The Long Goodbye, Chapter Seven
18 Jan 2018Kyndi the Badass Space Chick
“Good, Kyndi. That’s good. How many girls your age can say that they can hack a door?”
The child looked up with satisfaction at her parents, grinning from ear to ear. For several long
months she had sat by their side, learning the strange symbols and ways of stringing them together to
make machines do new things. It was an entirely new alphabet, one that she had learned on the heels of
the more mundane one. For her young mind, the two were natural and linked, the act of writing her name
for the first time not long before recoding a door to open without a passcode. It was one of several in the
Asp Explorer, and being able to pass through the ship uninhibited would be a boon for all three of the
exploring family.
The little girl looked at to her father. “Why do we need to play code games with the ship for the
doors to open? The doors at the places we go to just open.”
Father and mother looked at each other. The man smiled, his features handsome.
“Because sometimes ships like to play games with their owners. This one knows that it has people
onboard, and it doesn’t want them to get bored. And you like to play the games, don’t know?”
Smiling, the little girl nodded…
“Oh, hell. I am not in the mood for games!”
Kyndi’s eyes opened, still in the co-pilot’s seat. In one arm was Randy the Raccoon, and in the
other the child, also asleep. The Betrayal wasn’t moving, the starfield of deep space surrounding them.
The woman yawned and stretched, shaking her head.
I fell asleep? How long was I out? And why aren’t we back to that mountain base?
Matt noticed her movement and nodded. “Goddamn engine blew again. The fabbed parts just
weren’t up for it. It’ll take awhile for me to get out there and run a bypass.”
The smuggler leaned forward and rubbed her eyes. The girl’s hair was floating in the lack of
gravity, as was hers. Per the habit of most spacefaring women, she kept two or three bobbles on her wrist
at any given time. She took one in her fingers and absentmindedly tied her hair into a ponytail, doing the
same for the sleeping child.
“When did I fall asleep? I don’t even remember being tired.”
Lehman shrugged. “Well, you must have been. It was the fourth or fifth jump. I was just blabbin’
away to who I thought was you when I heard the first snore.”
Kyndi’s eyes widened in mock indignation. “I do not snore!”
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