Author's notes: This was an attempt to get more experience writing Mish. She hasn't allowed me to go on further because she knows she's going to get caught and punished for this little stunt.
The Biggest and Best Plan in the Universe
by Selma McCrory
copyright 2000
Mish'ele had a plan. Mish'ele had a big plan.
Most of Mish's plans involved getting out of the class so she wouldn't have to deal with the slowpokes. But this plan had a lot more to do with Mish's whole world rather than anything that she was used to.
Mish scowled when she remembered her father's refusal to let her do what she felt she needed to do. Something about her 'not being old enough'. And Mom and Alex had been the same way. She'd even turned to Grandpa and his Grandma, but nobody would listen to her! Nobody adult anyway.
So, Mish was kneeling on the floor of a storage room. In front of her, her part-sibling Shari leaned into an access that was too small for Mish, doing something to a panel with one of her small hands, while the other was clasped to her equally-old uncle Chris' hand. Mish beamed with pride as the two, both younger than her by a few months, worked to let her into the things that for some reason none of the adults would let her into.
Well, she'd show them! Not that Mom would have a problem anyway, since she liked to break rules. Dad would be plenty mad, probably, just like Alex and Grandpa and so many others. But she'd show them that she was right. And then they'd learn not to ignore her just because she was only nine!
Chris looked at her questioningly. "Tutklaro?" he asked quietly.
"Klaro," she whispered, remembering suddenly that she was supposed to be keeping watch. She wasn't supposed to be the slow one here! Chris and Shari were both slow, but that was because they were very human, very native, and so their development was slowed down. At least they weren't like poor mom. Here, the teachers knew what they were doing. They specialized in slowpokes.
There was a small click, and then Shari turned around. "Fin," she said to them.
"Now what?" Chris asked, rubbing his hands in apparent enthusiasm. Chris was like her: he liked to get into things. Shari liked to get into things too, but it was more likely that the thing she was getting into was trouble. She took after Mom. But she was good at getting out of trouble too, so good that Dad didn't know exactly how much trouble Shari tended to get into.
"I have to go up now," Mish said, and the other two nodded. Chris and Shari were small, looking their human ages, while Mish looked like a full human adult. So she was big where they were small. The next step was to get at something way high up, where neither Chris nor Shari could reach. She led the two of them out of that storeroom into another room, where Chris and Shari took their places watching out for her. Taking a stool, she cleared the area away from a little-used panel. Mish held her breath, knowing that most people on the ship didn't even know about half the functions one could do on it. She'd told Alex about the door locks one day, and he'd been gratified.
Alex had been able to get Mom and Dad to talk that day. She could do no less. She closed the panel gingerly, hiding it again. "Tutklaro?"
"Klaro," Shari replied, and Mish released her breath. "Fin?"
"Fin," Mish confirmed.
"Mish," Chris said, as if realizing something. "What if they discover something's wrong?"
"Chris," she replied, "They don't even know where to look."
With that, the three of them snuck out of there.
* * *
Somehow, mysteriously, the ship had changed course and wasn't willing to change back again.
Mish had found it hard to not grin during class. Her elation had gotten her through several days of class, though she found it hard to hide what she and the other two had gone. Most of the adults didn't know a thing, though Alex had asked her if she'd known. But Alex was an adult, and so Alex couldn't know their plan. Even if he was a good adult, like her Mom.
Mish, Chris, and Shari had agreed to meet when class ended again. Actually, this wasn't a problem, because of their close relationship. After all, Shari was her younger sibling, and who could refuse the right of siblings to be together?
At least this way they could fix things again in case the grownups figured out what was up and got it into their heads to change course. Not that it would hurt them to stay going where they were going. After all, she'd been very careful when she'd chosen their destination. Looked at everything from all sides just as any adult was supposed to. And made a choice better than any adult. Just because she wouldn't mature for another couple of years didn't mean that she couldn't make good choices.
* * *
Two days after that, it seemed like the adults were catching on. Mish had found herself excused from class by her father, who had taken her to a room where mom and Alex and Grandpa were waiting. Mish bounced into her seat, knowing that the adults wouldn't really think she and Shari and Chris were capable of doing what they'd done.
Her father settled down in a chair, and then Alex spoke up. "Mish, do you know anything the rest of us don't know about the navigation system?"
"I know that it's controlled from the bridge," Mish said brightly. "There are other ways of dealing with it all over the ship, just like there are other ways of dealing with the rest of the ship's systems."
"Do you know where these places are?" her grandfather asked. Mish's heart sank, but she reminded herself that they didn't know that she was the one who'd changed the course.
"Sure! I think they're over in the storerooms. I don't know exactly where, though," she volunteered. Actually, there were several accesses all over the ship, the Kimera of long ago being strong believers in redundant systems and accesses. It was just that the storeroom accesses were more convenient for the three of them to deal with. She bounced up. "But I can find out."
The adults, even Dad, smiled at this. "Why don't you find out and show me, honey," her grandpa suggested.
"Sure!" she said, almost running to the interface. She called up the storeroom areas, and the list of systems that she'd so carefully compiled. Grandpa was looking over her shoulder, and she smiled over at him. "Got it!" she told him. He smiled, and took her hand in his.
* * *
She navigated the corridors with ease, even leading her grandpa through them. Once at the first of the three storerooms with the navigational equipment, she paused as if she didn't know exactly where things were. "Let's see, the files said it would be here, or here, or here, she said, rapidly pointing out three different locations. One of them, she knew, was a dead system that she hadn't gotten up yet, the second had to do with the data store, and the third one was the actual navigational backup system. Or a portion of it, anyway. Grandpa was taking rapid notes.
She pulled him into the second room and then the third in quick succession, hoping that he wouldn't notice that she knew the rooms too well. Plus, it would take them some time to undo the changes that she, Chris and Shari had done.
"Thanks, Mish," her grandfather had done suddenly. "You know the ship well."
Mish shrugged. "It's my home," she said simply. "Some of us are just born to be one with our ships. I've been studying history."
"Oh?" grandpa asked casually.
"Yeah," she said. "Like how, once upon a time, some Kimera stayed on the homeworld, and others were like us and travelled the universe seeking to learn things."
"Do you know why we don't have a homeworld now?" grandpa said gently.
"Yeah. It's because the Taelons' and Jaridians' ancestors destroyed it," Mish said. "So we don't have one right now. But what about people like Mom, who aren't happy being on a ship?"
Grandpa sat her down in a nearby alcove. "In ideal circumstances, we'd have a homeworld. Also, in ideal circumstances, your mother would have been free to stay on Earth like she wanted to do, and have kids with Alex, passing on her Kimera ancestry to humanity. But the Taelons didn't want us there, and they'd be more than happy to destroy us again, given half a chance."
"What if we found someplace we could call home? Wouldn't we be able to settle down there and just not tell anyone that we're there?" Mish asked.
"People have ways of finding things like that out," her grandfather told her. "It just isn't safe right now. But you and your kids will live to see a homeworld. Just not right now."
As her grandfather was getting up, she asked, "You were willing to risk it when mom was Shari's age. Why can't we risk it now?"
Her grandfather sighed. "Because I had a lot more support then than we have now. Be patient, Mish'ele. Someday, things will be right."
* * *
Patience had never been Mish's strength, as anybody on the ship could tell a visitor. Besides, as long as Mom was unhappy on ship, someone had to make things better. Grandpa had been right that Mom had been born to be a planet-bound hybrid, and only because the Taelons were really stupid that she'd had to be on ship where she really didn't belong. If they had a planet to call home, then Mom could get off, and maybe Alex could too, and then everybody would be happy because mom would be happy.
TBC