The walk back to her house is calm. Macy has had time to prepare a route for her, and the headset guides her. It is a good thing because the task she has been given rings over and over in her mind.

“I’m able to access most of the ships systems, this has been granted to me for regular maintenance tasks. But occasionally I am given a short term pass to access more important systems, such as security, the Bridge, and so on. When I get the codes to access those places I am closely monitored, but if I had those codes without monitoring I could open the doors for our people to make their way to the upper levels en masse. Once our presence is known to everyone, people will see the grave injustice done to us and change their hearts, just like you have.”

“How are you going to get those codes?”

“You are going to get them for me.”

Siff plays with the small drive in her pocket. Her stomach turns in knots. Is it nerves, or is it from the beating she took just a few minutes ago?

“When your father gets home, put this drive on top of his workscreen. Keep it there until it buzzes and it will have copied those maintenance source codes. Then throw the device down the furnace the same as you did for your papers. I’ll be watching and catch the drive, upload the code, and set our people free.”

Leaving the headset behind a bush outside, it is only just past noon when Siff slips back into her house. It is going to be a long wait for her father to come home. It is going to be a long time for her to think about everything that could go wrong. It doesn’t help that her body has fresh bruises from the beating she took earlier.

The front door closes behind her and she limps to the living room. Siff wants to use the med-bed, but it feels sacrilegious to take advantage of it; the guilt of all that suffering keeps her to the couch. Collapsing on her back she groans and holds her ribs before managing to find a comfortable position to process her morning.

She has discovered a people hidden and enslaved, and she has been given the power to help them. How can she not try? Because I’m already in enough trouble as it is? Because if I get caught I will almost certainly be killed? Because there’s no way my father can protect me from this? Because if I do this, there’s no turning back? Oh skita, what have I gotten myself into? Can I live with myself if I don’t follow through? I’m already in enough trouble for hiding all those papers-those papers! That drawing! Oh shit! What am I going to do when my dad gets home? Does he have the drawing? Oh skita oh skita ohskitaskitaskita.

Siff sits up in panic then paces the room, limping back and forth trying to figure out a script of things to say and do depending on who comes through the front door first: her father or security. She finds her mind going in loops and has to focus on her breathing to calm down. She goes to her room and picks up her homework again, “Mission Documentation and Purposes”, hoping to distract herself from overthinking what the near future might look like. Hiding under the covers she reads intently, but after a couple of hours her fatigue closes her eyes and she drifts into dreamless slumber.