15 Party and a cliffhanger

The next day. My Uncle aunt and cousin came over for the celebration. We had cake and ice-cream it was vanilla cake with butterscotch swirls and honey roasted walnuts. The ice-cream Pralines and cream. If it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, sounds like a duck, and feels like a duck. Then it's a duck. Yes the walnuts are called something else. It just matters on what language you decide to use. I'm using earth equivalents on things that are the same.

Well back to the party. My uncle seems like a used car salesman who's trying to go legit. My aunt is a very sweet lady that I might get cavities from being in the same room. My cousin is 3, so I have no definite idea about him. In all things family is family until they are not.

My uncle got me a smuggler's guide to the universe dated last year. It has a benign cover to disguise it as a cargo masters manual. It even has the title covered, it also has 30 ways to disguise your cargo . 18 ways to shield your storage bays. And 15 ways to convert different sections of a ship in to illicit cargo storage and ways to keep them shielded. It's full of great ideas, although some of them cut down on the redundancies or longevity of you ship components.

My aunt got me a cook book. Well that's what I'm going to call it. It was more like 4 tablets mounted together and able to open up so you can see directions and pictures of what your doing. It has a lot of recipes and tips and tricks that are useable in the kitchen. It even has ways of poisoning persons of a specific race in such a way that it looks like an accident. The book even has a built in feature to adjust recipes for the number of recipients. It looks like it would be very useful. Did you know Huts are violently allergic to garlic grown on Tatooin. Who knew.

Mom got me a computer components kit. It had the pieces but not the frame or cooling modules.

Dad got me a micro forge. It takes materials and power to manufacture items. You can have up to five input feeds hooked up at one time. The build area is a 12 inch cube. It has an accompanying binder with operating instructions, but it has no computer hardware, so Dad and Mom must have joined together to make my present. I can design a frame and cooling system, then Frankenstein my computer hardware together and use the forge to build a custom case and cooling system.

...

A few hours later my Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin left on their shuttle and headed back to the station. After placing my gifts in my room, I headed back down to the medical ward with the instructions binder for the forge.

"Hi Doc. Any news?"

"Why, Yes there is. It appears that the suspension chemicals in her stasis pod have finally worked there way out of most of her systems. She should be a wake in an hour or two."

"That's great news. I'm going to go tell Mom."

I then left the room full of excitement running down the corridor. Then I remembered. We. Have. Coms. Sometimes I act my age. Oh well. I slowed down a bit before going to the nearest wall terminal and punch in the communications request for Mom and Dad.

Once Mom and Dad answered I told them the good news.

Mom with a chuckle replied back with a question. "So if Doc told you she would be awake in an hour or two. Why are you calling us from a terminal half way from there?"

"It's because I forgot" I replied while looking at my toes in embarrassment.

My Dad came back with a chuckle of his own. "It's ok. I know the felling. The day you were born I was running around the ship telling all the droids 'I HAD A SON' your mother bless her slapped some sense in to me when I was about to space walk from the Mega-Miner to the tourist space station just to tell your uncle. Your mother locked all external air lock hatches until I calmed down."

"Unfortunately it took your father 4 hours to calm down. It was really sad that as focused he was at spreading the news that he never realized the inside air lock door never shut. He just kept begging me to let him go out side. I must admit that I almost let him. But if I did I would have had to re task a probe to go and get him in a few hours once his air was drained. At the time the ship was several light seconds away from the station.

Sometimes when I need a laugh. Or to embarrass your father, I cue up the recording and play it over the public announcement systems in his area. It usually leads to funny things happening. One time you Dad was painting a corridor and accidentally selected a bright pink. He painted the whole corridor for the next 4 hours before the recording ended and he realized what he did. I got a good number of laughs from that."

My Dad's face is a bright shade of red and he is mumbling to himself while looking at his feet.

"Well that's what I wanted to tell you guys. I am going to go back and hang out with Bastille. I will call you from Medical once she wakes up."

Once I hung up I run back the way I came. Once in Her room I grabbed my binder and started to read about my new Forge.

Time went by.

Unknown to me as I was engrossed in my manual and running practice exercises on a tablet, Bastille began to move.

Then in a quiet voice I almost did not hear I heard.

"Where am I?"