There are times when you need help and advice from your folks. There are times when you need a shoulder to cry on. Then there are times when your mother calls you up in the middle of the night promising to chain herself to your ship to stop you making the worst mistake in your life. I woke up in a cold sweat at 3:00 am thinking that it was just a dream, then checked my communicator and realised no, it wasn't a dream, and my mother had actually called and really promised to "stop all this silliness". Silliness? Don't go there, this is my mother and she's not entirely rational when she gets something into her head.

You see I'd been in the orbiting space station for a couple of months by now and had made two very good friends in Kzen and Podie. We all worked in the same ship yard, locally dubbed Mondo's Flight Academy, and we'd worked hard to save our cash to fuel and fly a little Imparior class ship which we were fixing up. What the hell were my folks rescuing me from? Nothing was wrong as far as I could tell; I had cash in my pocket, I liked my job and had two great friends. In the end I gave up trying to sleep and got up for a shower, in what passed for a bathroom, in the lodging cabin which had become my new home. I had a very cold shower, damn the heating, my mind racing to work out how I could stop my parents from carrying out their bizarre pantomime promise. Was it legal to stun your parents and lock them in your cabin whilst you got away? Could I persuade the station officers that my parents were, in fact, dangerous terrorists with a price on their head? The more my mind raced the more unlikely the scenarios became but I'm going to draw a veil over the darker thoughts I had that morning: they don't show me in a charitable light.

Let's face some facts here, parents are great in principle but once you reach a certain age you realise that they're generally as mad as a bag of bogwumps. Okay maybe only my parents are as mad as a bag of bogwumps and yours are paragons of virtue and charity: congratulations, you can skip the rest of the story. I was faced with the prospect of having my own ship impounded by an overprotective mother with my father (probably driven to the edge by my mother) on hand as enforcer. Okay, the first order of the day, I thought to myself, was to break this little nugget of news to my friends.

Silence wasn't the reaction that I was expecting. I'd waited until lunch to, you know, slip it casually into conversation. I failed miserably on that count and ended up sort of shouting it in a whisper loud enough for everyone in the makeshift canteen to hear.

"Oh my god my folks are coming up here and mum's gonna chain herself to the ship, dad's gonna start a fight with anyone that tries to unchain her. Oh god my parents."
Absolute silence. Everyone looked at me. Then Big Al, a man who could tear armour plates off ships without assistance, started laughing. I contemplated hiding but I didn't think it was going to look too dignified hiding under the table. I stood up then sat down, looking sheepish and shrugged my shoulders.
"I'm frakked" I said summing up the situation.
More laughter followed.
Kzen and Podie stopped looking puzzled and joined the laughing parade. I shrugged again and fixed my gaze on a blank spot on the far wall and folded my arms over my chest.
"Say that again Sun" Said Big Al.
"I'm totally, completely frakked" I said.
The laughter continued for a few minutes and then Big Al disappeared from the canteen. He reappeared a few minutes later with an improbable length of chain which he rattled onto the table in front of me.
"On the house" He said with a grin "Does your mum look good in chains?"
I wished that I had something smart and witty to say back but nothing sprang to mind. After moments indecision I stood up said "You guys…" shook my head and stalked out of the canteen to gales of further laughter. Life was not good.

So I checked my communicator and guess what? Yup, my dear old mother had sent another little message informing me that she'd booked two emergency tickets on the red eye shuttle which would arrive tomorrow morning. My head spun for a second: I had less than 24 hours of freedom before my life got curtailed by my parents. It was in the middle of these ponderings that Kzen punched me in the shoulder, which was his standard way of saying Hi.

"C'mon it's not that bad Sun, a little embarrassment from your folks isn't going to upset anything" He said cheerily.
The problem with Kzen was that he was Minmitar. Okay that came out wrong: the problem with Kzen was that he wasn't familiar with Ni-Kunni borderland traditions and not to put too fine a point on it, the Ni-Kunni legal system.
"Kzen, I didn't tell you this before but if my dad grounds me I'm grounded".
Kzen gave me a blank look.
"You don't get it do you? I guess a lot of people don't, but round here if you're under 25, which I am, my parents have to give their consent before I can leave my homeworld"
There I'd said it, Kzen looked startled. I'd better explain things for you, just in case you're not Ni-Kunni either.

You see the Ni-Kunni grew up at the wilder edges of the empire. Our home world is in the Mishi system and whilst the landscape is beautiful, damn, it's hard to live in. This environment shaped Ni-Kunni traditions long before the Amarr got hold of us and we had a fistful of arcane traditions which matched the Amarr and then some. The longest standing tradition is that the head of the household (yup that'd be my dad) owned his wife and kids and his family couldn't do anything without his consent. This tradition had a peculiar effect when the Ni-Kunni were conquered and enslaved by the Amarr. The slave traders didn't buy and sell individuals; they just bought the oldest male in the family: the rest of his family came for free. Things changed when a bright trader realised that splitting the family apart created more slaves to buy and sell, so males above the age of 25 were exempted from the Ni-Kunni tradition of ownership. Pfft - upon a change in the law a heck of a lot more Ni-Kunni slaves became tradable and the trader who changed the law (a freed Ni-Kunni himself) became a very rich man. The law has stayed that way ever since, even with the end of slavery. So I guess I have slavery to thank for giving me some freedom from my father but I was cursing myself for only being twenty years old. It took me a while to explain the in's and out's to Kzen and Podie but they got it, in the end. For a while we all sat around keeping our thoughts to ourselves, since the future didn't look that bright if my dad could simply come along and ban me from going off world.
"So why don't we make a run for it, he can't stop you when we're out there Sun" Suggested Podie.

"I wish it'd work, but the law's the law Podes: if I leave I've broken the law. Concord and the local police could impound the ship and arrest you for aiding and abetting a known criminal."
"Man this is just like the Minmitar Slavery laws" Cursed Kzen.
Kzen and I got along so well, probably because our common ancestral experiences had slavery in them. You could see from the look on his face that my current dilemma touched a nerve deep inside him; I guess no-one wants to think of themselves as being someone else's property. We spent about an hour talking about what we could do, and then gave up on the topic as each avenue we explored looked like a dead end to us. Then we got a little more morbid and began to talk about what we could have done had the law not been such an ass. After we exhausted that topic we gave up talking and drifted back to work in Mondo's yard. I told Mondo all about my predicament and he expressed some sympathy but had a far off look, like he was thinking about something else, which jarred me. Perhaps one man's burden is another's opportunity; perhaps he was wondering if he could get the ship back and make a profit. Who knows? I wasn't brave enough to put that scenario to him.

The rest of the day passed without incident and at the end of our shift we all hit our favourite station bar for some desperately needed alcoholic refreshment, since this was my last night of freedom. The owner of the bar, a man by the name of Jaco, was a decent enough guy, although rumour had it that he was never entirely sober. I strode over to the bar and ordered our usual round of drinks. I was just about to take them back to our table when I received a hearty slap on the back which knocked the breath out of me for a second.

"You're sure your dad would approve of this?" Said a voice behind me.
It was Big Al again. I hadn't had him down as a bully, but since his discovery that my folks were going to whisk me away from the station perhaps he'd seized on the idea that he could have some fun with me.
"Don't start Al, its bad enough knowing that this is my last night up here."
"You going to take it lying down? Man you're a bigger mummy's boy than I thought you were"
"Al it's the law, I can buck my parents but not the law and you know it."
Al knew it alright and he knew that he could needle me all night about it, in my favourite bar, with an audience. He carried on with random comments for a while, made loudly enough so that all could hear it until I'd had enough. After a few drinks the booze got a hold of me, I stood up and marched purposefully across the room to speak to Big Al. Al held up his hand to stop me, as I walked towards him.
"Tell ya what kid, seeing as it's your last day, how's about a little game of Beat the House?"

I'd forgotten that this was the bar where anyone who could drink more than Jaco in an evening got their bar bill torn up. His suggestion caught me off guard and played to two things that were not working in my favour right now: I was young and I'd already had something to drink. The combination of the two, for those of you who have forgotten what being young is like, was that I agreed to Big Al's challenge without thinking. The stupid, drunk part of me clearly thought it'd be a great idea to drink so much that I forgot everything.
"Hey Jaco" I said.
"Yeah?"
"Beat the House: I'm the challenger" I said standing up on the bar rail so that everyone in the bar would notice me. A ragged cheer went up from the mob. Jaco smiled and sidled towards me carrying a bottle of my favourite liquor. You had to hand it to a man who was never quite sober; he never forgot what you liked to drink. He pulled two racks of glasses out from underneath the bar and filled one rack with my poison of choice and the other with his. He rang up the bill for both racks of glasses on my tab and stuck the receipt to the last glass in my rack. To prevent any cheating, he moved his rack of glasses out of the way of the main bar to a place where we could all see it.

"Rules are simple Sun, you drink everything in that rack and when you've finished you've got to read the tab on the last glass out loud without slurring, puking or passing out. If you make it I'll tear it up and we're done. If you don't, you pay for everything."
He grinned again, reached for two of his glasses and chugged them both down.

Game on.

Whilst I was busy attempting to pickle myself Big Al, being the instigator of tonight's fun, suggested a game of "Chain your mother", which being a new game became instantly popular with the crowd. My humiliation became much easier to bear the more I drank, so I put myself to the task of beating Jaco with steely resolve. The evening wore on and to my great shame (I was told some days later) I passed out three drinks before getting to the end of my rack.

When I woke up, it was dark, uncomfortable and I had a headache that was so bad I threw up. I also couldn't move. Oh frak I said to myself, I've got drunk then fallen over and paralysed myself. Where the hell was I? I tried to move again and it slowly dawned on me that I wasn't paralysed but I was in chains. It took a while to put the fragments of the previous evening together, but in hindsight Big Al playing "Chain your Mother" and me passing out wasn't a good combination. The old pod pucker had obviously wrapped me in chains and rolled me somewhere unpleasant to live out my final hours. My dilemma was pressing though: I couldn't think straight, was in chains and couldn't see either. I tried moving around my new prison but kept bumping into some very awkward (and sharp) metal boxes which hurt. I tried shouting for help but that made my head pound all the more and I threw up again. In the end I settled for moving myself around and then pounding on any object that got in my way with my feet. Someone would hear the noise, I thought to myself, and come to investigate.

I don't know how long it took before someone noticed my dilemma but after I'd practically wrecked wherever I was trapped, a door opened and light flooded in to illuminate my surroundings. The light hurt my eyes so I shut them and threw up again. There was a tutting sound from my rescuer.
"I'll put the damage and cleanup on your tab" Said Jaco.
Damn, was I still in the bar?
"What time is it?" I asked blurrily
"About four in the afternoon" He said cheerily and just loudly enough to wake my hangover up again.
I groaned and rolled over: I'd missed my last day of freedom, my parents would have arrived and I looked like a disgrace. Even more worrying was the fact that, since I was technically missing when they must have arrived, they might have filed a report with the police. That would take some explaining. I tried to get up but couldn't, so I lay back on the floor and groaned loudly. Jaco shrugged his shoulders but left the door ajar so that I could get out. In the end, after I'd recovered enough of my thoughts to get myself together, I made it out of the store cupboard and persuaded one of the staff to help me out of my chains, then I staggered back to my lodging cabin to clean up.

I can't remember what time I made it to Mondo's yard but I do remember the feeling in the pit of my stomach when I realised that the Impairor we'd been fixing up wasn't there. In its place was a big gaping chunk of space. I stumbled my way over to the spot where it had been the day before and just stood there, arms hanging limply at my side. I didn't feel like a stoic Ni-Kunni as a tear rolled down my cheek; no I felt like a young kid who'd taken a wrong turn and got mugged. How stupid could I have been? I knew what must have happened: Mondo knew that my folks were coming, had sent Big Al over to the bar to keep me distracted and then quietly come to some arrangement with my folks whilst I was out of the way. I'd done business with Mondo over a handshake and took his word that everything was fine. I'd assumed that he'd honour any agreement we had. I'd been so utterly, foolishly young and stupid. I wanted to do something about it but I knew that it was his word against mine and up here, as it had been made clear many times, his word counted for a lot more than a hundred of me. Disconsolate, I walked to the cabin to see how I could get myself out of the mess I'd got myself into and maybe, just maybe, get some wages out of Mondo.

I got to the cabin and went in, not bothering to knock. I didn't know what I was going to say, hoping that something would spring to mind; some clever, witty remark to retrieve some of my pride. Mondo was sitting behind his desk, attending to some official looking documentation on a digilog screen. He looked like he was half expecting me and gestured to the chair in front of his desk; I sat down. He turned the digilog device round so that it faced me and handed me a stylus.
"Sign here" He said gruffly, jabbing at the screen.
I didn't have the heart to argue and signed.
"…and here" He said again.
Well, it's a bit late to not sign now I thought to myself and signed again.
"Thanks" He said brusquely. He turned the digilog back to face him and after a few clicks sighed and switched the log off.
"So what are you going to do now?" He asked.
"I don't know. Look about the ship..my parents….you know I really wanted to…"
"Ah your parents, they were a handful, especially your father. Not a man to be argued with is he?"
"Uh" I nearly managed a smile "No, no really, he's a hard man to stop when he gets going."
"Isn't he just? So you weren't around, he assumed the worst and well what can I say?"
You don't have to say anything I thought to myself. I was silent for a moment. Mondo gave me a moment to gather my thoughts, then he carried on:
"He went crazy you know, wanted to impound the ship, lucky it wasn't here."

Lucky it wasn't here.

Well if it wasn't here, where the heck was it?
"Uhm Mondo? Where was, is, the, you know?"
"Ah" Said Mondo, pausing for a second "Well you three didn't show up this morning and the ship had gone as well. Then your dear father turns up, goes nuts at me, then goes nuts at the staff and threatens me with the police. I told him what I knew: you'd not shown up and I didn't know where the ship was. Before I knew it he'd jumped to all sorts of crazy conclusions and then your mother, whoooee is she a firework, decided you'd all run off into space."
Ah that wasn't so good. If my folks thought I'd run off to space they could file a report against me and that would make me a wanted man.
"Of course your dad insisted that we fill out all the forms and that I sign them as a witness. I don't think I had a choice, given the way things are going."
He paused as he turned on the digilog, shuffled through a few pages and then hit the print button. I watched a pile of very official looking papers spew out of a printer next to him and flow onto the floor.

"I really must fix that printer" He said, shuffling the papers and putting them back into some semblance of order.
"Anyway, they got me all turned round with the shouting and cussing and heck, I'll have to tell you sooner or later: they signed the wrong documents".
By now he'd finished sorting the documents out and passed a neat pile of paperwork over to me.
"Somehow I printed a release form and they signed it"
I think my jaw dropped and didn't stop dropping until it hit the floor. I shut my mouth, then stood up and promptly sat down.
"Mr Mondo, the what and the form?" I said, making no sense at all.
"Ah the release form, let's just say that it's a piece of paper that means your parents have no control over you anymore and since they have no control, I can issue a temporary pilots licence, here you go". He passed me another official looking document.

I was in a haze having gone from disaster to victory in the space of a few minutes.
"Mr Mondo, where's my ship?"
"Big Al made a mistake and towed your ship to the launching pad this morning. The idiot had drunk way too much the night before and entered the wrong details into the station logs. God he's an idiot"
"So I'm guessing my dad forced a station search and my ship had disappeared then?"
"Something like that. Look it's best not to go into too many details, it's embarrassing when these things happen. I've got a reputation to protect."
I thought of a million questions I wanted to ask him but he held up his hands to stop me.
"Listen kid, the way I see it, luck smiled on you this morning and whilst you were hiding from your folks some angel up there put your ship on the pad and sorted out your paperwork. If I were you I'd round up Kzen and Podie and take that ship of yours for a spin before anyone has second thoughts"

…And that's exactly what we did.